MSU Professor to Discuss What Life is Like for the Food Insecure

Flathead Valley Community College will host Montana State University professor Alison Harmon’s presentation of “$3 a Day – Building Empathy and Compassion for the Food Insecure” on Tuesday, March 12. Free and open to the community, the presentation will begin at 7 p.m. in the large community room of the Arts & Technology Building.

According to Harmon, nearly 13 percent of U.S. households experience food insecurity during any given year. Harmon will provide a snapshot of both global and local hunger and detail the results of the “Food Insecurity Experience,” an empathy-building project in which she and her students put themselves on a very limited food budget in order to understand some of the physical, mental and emotional consequences of living with food insecurity.

Harmon is Dean of the College of Education, Health & Human Development at MSU, where she is also a professor of food and nutrition and sustainable food systems. Her research is related to curriculum development and educator guidance around food systems and sustainability. She has provided leadership in the development of innovative curricula at MSU, including the Sustainable Food & Bioenergy Systems degree program, the Montana Dietetic Internship, Towne’s Harvest Garden, and Hospitality Management & Culinary Arts, with an emphasis on farm to table, food enterprise and rural hospitality.

For more information about the presentation, contact Gerda Reeb at 756-3889 or greeb@fvcc.edu or Heather Estrada at 756-4182 or hestrada@fvcc.edu.