Food Banks: Helping the Needy Live Dignified Lives 文．朱立群 ∕ translated by Phil Newell 1 Nov. 27

11/27 Reverend  Philip Chen, the person who introduced US-style food banks to Taiwan, still has a dream. He hopes the government will adopt legislation  that liberates all good Samaritans by exempting  those who donate food in good faith from any criminal or civil liability  if something goes wrong and a recipient is harmed.     2

reverend  a priest or minister in the Christian church   adopt legislation  introduce legislation  pass legislation= bring in legislation   exempt  to say that (someone or something) does not have to do something that others are required to do. E.g. He was exempted from military service because of his heart condition.   criminal liability: 刑事責任 civil liability: 民事責任   3

otherwise  in all ways except the one mentioned. end up  to reach or come to a place, condition, or situation that was not planned or expected e.g.  He ended up (living) in a nursing home. 4 It is better that food [ that would otherwise be wasted ] end up in the hands of those who need it, so that no one will have to live in fear of hunger

5 In 2012, one out of every six Americans experienced hunger, and the number of people getting assistance from food banks was 46 percent higher than in Also in 2012, about 850,000 Canadians required food bank assistance each month.

6 Food banks in the US and Canada provide just-in-time safety nets to grab hold of ( =catch ) people and pull them up before they fall into desperate poverty. just-in-time  for describing something you will lose or destroy it if you wait for one more minute!

Statistics from the Ministry of the Interior in Taiwan show that there are 614,432 people living in households (which are) defined as low income or lower-middle income. household  the people in a family or other group that are living together in one house 7

They make up 2.6 percent of the total population, and they are the chief targets of government relief and social assistance. However, there are another roughly 1.7 million people living below the poverty line, who are called the near poor, and do not have access to government social welfare resources. 8

Reverend Chen is determined to do something about this. He was born in Taiwan but moved to the US at the age of 21 and lived there for more than two decades, becoming a Christian minister. Four years ago, he returned to Taiwan and single-handedly founded the Taiwan People's Food Bank Association (TPFBA), which he enrolled in the international non-profit organization, Global Foodbanking Network, as its 24th member. 9

Food Banks: Helping the Needy Live Dignified Lives 文．朱立群 ∕ translated by Phil Newell 10 Nov.28

While in the US, Reverend Chen participated as a volunteer in church, community, and state-level food banks, gaining hands-on experience in how they operate and getting a glimpse of how tightly knit and deeply rooted the material relief system is in the US. How happy I am! 11

Then a few years ago, when he found out that there were people in Taiwan whose lives were so hard that they stole food, the thought came to him to import the US approach to Taiwan. Import  to bring a product into a country to be sold — opposite export 12

In Taiwan, there are currently more than 20 organizations engaged in charitable food distribution services, not all of which call themselves food banks. Some are religious groups or their affiliates, while others are secular social welfare organizations. affiliation  the state of belonging to a particular religious or political group — usually plural ▪ [ 例 ] They agreed not to discuss their political affiliations. secular  not spiritual; of or relating to the physical world and not the spiritual world 13

They share no uniform operating model. Some give out food coupons, and some collect donations( = cash donation ) { with which they buy food for distribution}. They all aim to reduce the burden that food expenditures place on households in need. _____: the act of giving or delivering sth to sb _____: an amount of money that is spent on st. 14

So where does Reverend Chen's group fit in? The TPFBA is a material bank, collecting mainly canned and packaged food for redistribution. It gets more than 90 percent of its food from donations, most of them products whose expiry dates are up within a few months. 15

Chen says that although the TPFBA accepts cash donations, it does not use these to buy any of the kinds of products [ that are most routinely donated ], such as rice, noodles, canned food, and crackers. cookies  sweet crackers  salty biscuit  BE 16

He thinks the donated money should be reserved for things that no one brings in like crutches for the elderly, eyeglasses, diapers, and sanitary napkins. "The real spirit of a food bank is not to buy food, but to find food that would have otherwise gone to waste and then distribute it to those who need it," Chen explains. 17