There is a geography that correlates to the concept of hope. All of us are in need of hope. But where might you find it? If you had to map the geography of hope, what might your map look like? Whichever criteria you use, it would surely include the address of 61470 South Highway 97 in Bend, Oregon. That is the address of the new Community Store operated by The Giving Plate.
The Giving Plate is a grassroots pantry founded by a family from Central Oregon. It is hard to have hope when you are experiencing food insecurity. But The Giving Plate is much more than your typical food bank. Their motto is “Fighting Hunger and Feeding Hope.” Their vision is to create a place where guests feel seen and cared for and to be a community that affirms every person’s inherent worth and dignity. Since its inception in 2010, they have distributed more than 7 million pounds of food to people who need it. Now that you know where to find hope, let’s take a peek inside the community store to see what the Geography of Hope looks like.
What the Geography of Hope Looks Like
The design of the built environment of the store reflects the values of the organization. Their grocery program is set up in a market-style setting that allows guests to shop for the foods they and their families need. The wall on the southwest side of the store is adorned with colorful plates, suggesting a festive atmosphere as if you were invited to a party. Guests are invited to come two times per month to choose which foods they would like to take home.
On the north side of the store, at the entrance to the Kid’s Korner, you will see a mural about feeding hope. On the right is a girl surrounded by a bountiful fruit harvest. She represents those with abundance who are reaching out to others. On the left is a boy standing on a box, receiving some fruit. He represents someone in need, and as he receives food, the color begins to show up in his hand. This represents the light of hope that can begin to shine within someone.
The northwest section of the community store is where the Kid’s Korner is located. Besides having a play area, there is a Kid’s Korner market, where children can handpick their items of choice, helping to foster a sense of joy and empowerment. It is easier for hope to flourish when it starts out earlier in life.
The Shopping Experience-Gathering Hope
When guests enter the Community Store, they are greeted by a volunteer. There are spaces for 10 guests to shop at one time. If a cart is available, a greeter will take the guest’s information, give them a color card correlating to the number of people in their family that they are shopping for, and refer them to a shopping assistant if they need one. If there are no carts available at the time, guests have the choice of taking premade groceries or having a seat in the waiting area until their turn is called. Coffee, tea, and snacks are available at the Hospitality Center while they wait. Most guests choose to wait until they can shop for themselves.
Once guests are shopping in the aisles, the color-coded shelf tags direct them as to how many items from each category they may take. For a larger family (with a black tag) choosing canned beans, they may choose to take one can of five different flavors of beans or five cans of their favorite kind. A smaller family with a blue tag will choose three items from that category.
Guests will find fresh fruits and vegetables as well as coolers and freezers in the northeast section of the market, where they can select meats and dairy products. There is a station for guests to weigh produce. Allotments vary by family size.
Once guests finish shopping, they proceed to the checkout area, where their food is weighed and bagged. Carts do not leave the store, but a volunteer assists them in loading their food into their cars. Ninety percent of our guests are housed, and many of them are working.
The Community Store model helps to re-imagine what food relief looks like. It affirms every person’s inherent worth and dignity. Guests really appreciate the ability to choose their own items. It is a big step up from the old model at Scandia Plaza, where guests would line up in cars and volunteers picked the orders ahead of time. The Covid pandemic played a part in that model.
The Scandia Plaza location is now closed. The Giving Plate’s new Distribution Center is at 1212 First Street, where goods are received and distributed. That address should also be included on the map of the Geography of Hope. This warehouse is also the home of the Bend Food Project, the organization that collects green bags of donated food from community members. The Distribution Center is open from 8-12 most mornings to receive food at the back door.
What it takes to create a Geography of Hope
It takes the right kind of environment for the Geography of Hope to flourish. The French term “terroir” is used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop’s phenotype, such as soil, climate, and sunlight. “Terroir” is why the same species of grape can have different flavors imparted to a wine by the environment in which it is produced. Using this concept, The Giving Plate strives to provide the best “terroir” to its guests by serving them with dignity, compassion, and hospitality.
The Giving Plate would have a lot of difficulty meeting its mission alone. It takes a lot of community partners, including the Bend Food Project (green bags and bi-monthly food donations from neighborhoods), purchased and donated food via NeighborImpact and the Oregon Food Bank, purchasing from local grocers, and help from legacy donors (local businesses and private donors). It is possible for one person to bring hope to another, but it is accomplished much more easily when a group of individuals and a community come together as one.
The Giving Plate not only represents hope for people who are food insecure in Central Oregon, but it gives me hope, too….I happen to be a volunteer there. Volunteering there gives me a sense of purpose and meaning in my life. I also appreciate being part of a team making a positive impact on our community. If you live in the Central Oregon region, we invite you to partner with us. You can do that either by volunteering your time, donating food, or with a financial contribution. For those of you reading this who are out of the region, consider maybe starting a similar model in your own community or partnering with an already established organization where you live. It might just help spread the Geography of Hope!
Spreading Hope to include other Geographies
When mapping the Geography of Hope, a dot-density map would be the most appropriate type of map to employ. Geographers study the spatial location of a variable, and most observations of the variable of Hope are discrete phenomena, meaning places where it is found are usually individually distinguishable from place to place, and form a separate entity. Dot maps show discontinuous phenomena, where what is being mapped only occurs where the dot is. An example of this is shown in the following map of snow parks in Oregon. This map shows the location of snow parks, which are discrete, non-contiguous phenomenon.
When mapping the Geography of Hope, a dot map shows where hope may be found and assumes that hope only exists in those places. If we were to ever have hope spread enough to where it exists in a different spatial dimension (area, volume, space-time), then we could map it using different cartographic methods. OR, we could just have a lot more dots on our dot-density map!
When attempting to spread the Geography of Hope, it is important to examine the map of it in different scales. “The concept of scale in geography relates to the size of the area being studied and determines the level of precision and generalization applied in the study” (1). Relating this concept to photography, one must zoom in and zoom out to get different views of the subject you are attempting to photograph. Likewise, in spreading the Geography of Hope it is important to zoom in on your own community to better see the needs of the people in it up close. The Giving Plate has done a commendable job in this respect, as they have recently added a Kid’s Korner Mobile Pantry, a renovated charter bus that travels to outlying communities each Saturday. Another program they offer to the community is Backpacks for Bend, a program that serves the neediest children in the Bend-La Pine School district to ensure that no child in the community faces a weekend of hunger.
But how does the picture change when you zoom out to include a much larger area? When stocking the shelves with food at the community store, I noticed that the cans of tuna were often products of either Thailand or Senegal. And that got me thinking…..the community of Bend, Oregon, depends on a lot of communities in other places, both near and far. I wonder….what does the Geography of Hope look like in those communities? And is there any way I can be involved in spreading hope to those places, too?
Once you have identified different communities on the global scale by zooming out to include a study of them, you probably want to view them in their regional context to understand them better. After that, you will want to zoom back in on those locales to know them more intimately to understand their needs. When you include the concept of “WE” to include other countries and cultures that we share planet Earth with, then it will also be possible to spread hope to other geographies around the globe.
For more information, check out the website of the Giving Plate https://www.thegivingplate.org thegivingplate.org
(1) from Dent, Borden , 1985. Principles of Thematic Map Design. p. 140. Addison-Wesley Publishing.
Geographical Journeys 
Love it! ❤ Nice to see pictures of where you spend your Wednesdays 🙂. Great concept and vision.
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Thanks…Wednesdays I’m at the Distribution center, which I only have a picture of the outside. But I do also work at the store on occasion on one of the other days. Great places!
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I found this really interesting and inspiring. I’m involved with a food distribution charity in London, UK (disclaimer, my husband co-founded and now chairs it). Called PlanZheroes, the charity works to partner businesses with surplus food (restaurants, caterers, food stores etc) with community groups and charities whose service users can benefit from it, e.g. supporting refugees, the elderly, homeless and more. We also run regular collections of end of day surpluses from traders at one of London’s best known and prestigious food markets, Borough Market, and distribute these to local charities. We’re always interested to hear how other communities are tackling issues of food insecurity, so thank you for this.
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Sarah,
Thank you for your part in spreading the geography of hope. Glad to hear about your efforts across the pond!
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