How to nourish yourself while feeding others – Independent Weekly
Kitty Banks runs the kitchen at InterAct, a shelter for domestic violence victims. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange.
A piece on hunger runs the risk of feeling stoic or redundant, full of statistics and absent of hope. I struggled with this as I researched and spoke to numerous people involved in local hunger relief projects. Then I met Ms. Kitty Banks, who gave me the honor of telling me her compelling story.
“Not only am I doing what I want to do,” Banks says, “but it’s part of my dream to have my own kitchen. This is as close to mine for now.”
Thirteen years ago, this wasn’t the case. Banks says she was a “functioning drug addict, trying to hang on” as a single mom working two jobs to support her kids and her habit. Though smiling, she still can’t avoid the tears welling in her eyes when she recalls an incident that happened many years ago: She sat at her kitchen table and ignored her children’s pleas for breakfast.
“They knew mama was hung over, that she started her day with a BC [powder] and a Sunkist.”
