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Former Alumnus Develops Successful Program to Feed the Hungry

By Meg Owen
UW News Lab

University of Washington alumnus Dr. Peter Clarke didn't always have a dream to create change, but 46 years after graduating there is no doubt that Clarke has had a major impact on millions of lives.

Before starting at UW, Clarke attended Seattle University as a Business major. However, he did not finish his degree there because he owned a business that required too much of his time.

"I was an industrial photographer in Seattle and, increasingly, the business was becoming a public relations and advertising agency. That was taking a great deal of my time. So I dropped out of school," Clarke explains.

Later on, he decided to finish his education at the University of Washington as a Journalism major. After graduating from the UW in 1958, Clarke received his doctorate at the University of Minnesota, studying psychology and communication.

"When I finished my PhD, which was in 1963, I then coincidentally returned to the University of Washington as a faculty member in what was at that time called the School of Communications," said Clarke. He became director of the School at UW and taught at the University of Michigan for nine years, before becoming the dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California from 1981 to 1992. USC also added him to the faculty of the Keck School of Medicine, specializing in preventive medicine.

It was after some time at USC that Clarke began the work that would change the lives of low-income people across the country. Once at USC, Clarke's interests shifted from political communication to public health. He worked in areas of chronic conditions such as cancer and diabetes. With his colleague Dr. Susan Evans, he later became interested in the problems of malnutrition in the U.S.

"We hadn't worked in that area until 1991, but when we saw the needs, we were very quickly persuaded that that was where we could make the greatest contribution," said Clarke.

Clarke and Evans created a program called From the Wholesaler to the Hungry. It has helped nearly 150 surplus food rescue organizations in 45 states launch wholesale programs that capture "edible-but-not-sellable" fresh produce and provide these nutritious foods free to low-income people, via thousands of non-profit community agencies.

According to the Keck School of Medicine fact sheet for the program, Clarke and Evans's From the Wholesaler to the Hungry establishes partnerships between the food industry and charitable agencies, city-by-city across the U.S. Vast amounts of fruits and vegetables, nearly 300 million pounds last year, are donated and speedily distributed to people who cannot afford to purchase these expensive items.

Clarke and Evans followed the lead of a former produce dealer, Mickey Weiss, who had created a prototype effort in Los Angeles.

"Saving nutritious produce from needless dumping was working very well here in Los Angeles," Clarke recalled, "but was not happening anywhere else in the country."

Clarke and Evans realized that Weiss's idea could work elsewhere, if local adaptations were made site-by-site. And the idea could work, if someone traveled the country, promoting the health benefits of perishable foods, raising grants to food banks for needed cooling and other upgrades, and providing technical assistance to get the job done.

"We launched our project in 1991 because we had discovered what a glaring need there was for low-income people to get nutritious food, vital for preventing or managing chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, many cancers, infectious illnesses, and more," said Clarke.

Along with their work in nutrition, Clarke and Evans have continued a full schedule of teaching and writing. Their latest book, "Surviving Modern Medicine: How to Get the Best from Doctors, Family, and Friends," has received media attention and sold briskly.

Clarke, Evans and colleagues in computer science have even created a way for recipients of fresh produce to learn how to prepare the food in healthy, efficient, and tasty servings. Clarke said that it is a high priority for him to help people make the most nutritious and appealing use of the food possible.

Quick! Help for Meals is their Web-based tool that community pantries can use to provide individualized recipes and food handling tips so that recipients of charitable food learn what to do with this food. Clarke and Evans's Quick! Help, supported by several foundation grants, is now in extensive field trials. Each recipient of fresh food gets just the recipes tailored to his or her cooking skills, available kitchen utensils, and household composition.

Several organizations have recognized the achievements by Clarke and Evans. They received the 1996 National Award for Hunger Relief from the United Parcel Service Foundation and an award from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Clarke said that he appreciates the recognition, but that plaques are not the reason he is passionate about his mission.

As Clarke explained, "It's gratifying to attract attention, but by far the most satisfying part of this work is to actually help improve people's diets, and to achieve that impact for millions of people, not just handfuls of people." Nearly 24 million Americans — including minimum-wage adults, seniors on fixed incomes, and children — rely each year on free food provided through charitable sources. From the Wholesaler to the Hungry has revolutionized the quality of foods these places make available. Clarke and Evans intend that their Web-based tool, Quick! Help for Meals, will raise the quality of people's diets even further.

Clarke actually hopes, however, that he will someday work himself out of a job. "Our greatest reward would be that available and healthy surplus food outpaces the nation's need to prevent hunger and poor nutrition." For now, however, he is set to stay with From the Wholesaler to the Hungry.

"We never imagined back in 1991 that we would still be doing this in 2005." But poverty and malnutrition have grown, instead of shrinking. "For now, at least, we sadly have plenty of work in front of us."

Meg Own is a Journalism major and a student in the Department of Communication's Community Journalism course.

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