Can Religious Congregations Satisfy Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Justice? An Assessment of Faith-Based Food Assistance Programs in Rural Mississippi
John P. Bartkowski, Helen A. Regis and Neil R. White, Mississippi State University
Melinda N. Chow, University of MemphisIn the wake of welfare reform, many states have considered utilizing local religious communities as a point of social service delivery for relief previously offered through state entitlement programs. "Charitable Choice, " Section 104 of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, mandates that states which explore routing social services through local voluntary associations must consider religious congregations as prospective providers of such relief. In light of growing support for charitable choice initiatives among Mississippi policymakers, this study will: (1) examine the food assistance strategies currently employed by a heterogeneous sample of religious communities in Mississippi's Golden Triangle Region; (2) situate faith-based food assistance efforts within the broader context of congregational relief programs; (3) compare these faith-based relief initiatives with the service delivery mechanisms utilized in public assistance programs; and (4) explore the prospect for expanding faith-based food assistance and aid programs via the infusion of block grant monies into local religious congregations.Our triangulated study will draw on primary survey data and over six hundred pages of transcribed in-depth interview data recently culled from religious leaders representing thirty-five local congregations. Our investigation will also utilize a voluminous body of ethnographic data on food and relief programs collected from four key religious congregations and from various parachurch relief efforts. These primary survey and qualitative data will be analyzed in light of contextual-level Census data gauging regional patterns of poverty, stratification, and public assistance use. Our study will reveal the distinctive and diverse means by which local congregations seek to address a range of food-based needs among vulnerable populations, including food pantries, hot meal programs, the assisted purchase of foodstuffs, and other faith-based initiatives. At the same time, we plan to explore how various types of social hierarchies (e.g., congregational authority structures, community-level patterns of racial segregation) sometimes negatively impact food disbursement by local religious communities.
In short, our study will allow us to ascertain the strengths and limitations of utilizing religious congregations as a food provision outlet to vulnerable populations in rural Mississippi. The findings generated from our research will benefit Mississippi policymakers as they consider implementing charitable choice initiatives jointly with local religious communities in GTR and throughout the state. Our study will also illuminate the prospects of charitable choice initiatives currently under consideration for rural areas and in other parts of the South and the United States.
