video by Andrew Plotsky

The most lasting habits are those learned young, something that Bread for the City’s Nutrition Consultant (and mother of two) Sharon Gruber knows well.

Sharon, who conducts nutrition classes and cooking workshops with Bread for the City’s adults clients, featured a Family Fun Party at each of our centers (Northwest in Shaw and Southeast in Anacostia). “I thought it would be great to provide a fun, health-focused outing for families the week before DC public schools start for the year,” said Sharon.

About 25 mothers, grandmothers and children of all ages were in attendance. Children and caregivers alike enjoyed bananas rolled in sunflower seeds and whole-grain cereal, “sandwich on a stick” and “stuff your own tacos”, just to name a few. By Sharon’s count, one of the crowd favorites was “plain, low-fat yogurt that the kids sprinkled with cinnamon themselves. The then dipped apples into it, and for extra fiber and nutrients, the apples still had the skin on. No need for the sweetened stuff!”

For many of Sharon’s clients and their families, meat is the central element of each mean– and sometimes diets can lack the proper balance of vegetables and fruits. These classes were designed to explore the possibilities of fruits and vegetables and they were a hit with both children and parents. One mother remarked, ” I’m filled up….Who knew it was possible? You really don’t need meat.”

Recent research suggests that activities like these may be an effective tool to change childhood eating habits permanently. “Previous research has shown that food habits and eating patterns learned in early childhood continue into later childhood and adulthood,” according to a study published in the current issue of Nutrition and Dietetics. “This means that emphasizing healthy food choices at an early age can have a major impact on a person’s future health…Kindergartners may be more likely to eat vegetables if they’re enticed with things such as tasting parties, cooking classes, gardening and even Popeye cartoons.” After a six-week nutrition education program geared towards children, the study found that “vegetable intake doubled and the types of vegetables they ate increased from two to four. In addition, parents said their children talked about vegetables more often and were proud they had eaten them in their school lunch.”

“Being a mom has helped me to empathize with parents of those so-called picky kids,” explains Sharon. “But it’s also taught me that it’s important to keep at it until you find something that works. Somewhere, that winning formula exists.”

One of our pickiest party-goers, the reluctant brother of two vegetable loving sisters, bravely tried every dish at the event, much to the surprise of his shocked siblings. “He normally only eats French Fries,” his younger sister declared. Still, nothing was to his liking until the 11-year-old found carrots and hummus. “This is great!” he said, eyes wide.

Although hummus is common in upscale grocery stores, it is out of reach for many budget conscious shoppers; Sharon encourage participants to try the dishes at home by providing alternative recipes that taste just as good but cost far less.

One of our youngest participants munch happily on each and every vegetable around but declared yogurt to be her favorite fruit. Perhaps not quite the answer we were looking for, but for Sharon this is nonetheless a sign of progress.

“The point of this is to get kids touching food, making food, interacting with food. My hope was that children (and possibly their parents and guardians) would try something new and healthful and enjoy themselves in the process– to take the pressure out of eating a healthful diet, adn to add some laughter and adventure instead.”

And that might be the most important lesson learned here: food can be fun!

The Yes! Organic Market, part of a mixed used development project in the Fairlawn neighborhood of SE DC. Photo courtesy of http://www.anacostianow.com

The first organic market to open east of the Anacostia is certainly a milestone – but is it accessible?

According to a press release announcing the new supermarket:

“… Yes! Organic Market is committed to making fresh produce and healthy food affordable to the diverse demographic of families in the surrounding neighborhoods. The store is accepting supplemental nutrition assistance benefits (SNAP) and Women, Infant and Children (WIC) program vouchers.”

Mayor Adrian Fenty is certainly excited about the store’s opening two weeks before the mayoral primary election. The store was funded through the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED).  The Department oversees a program called the Great Streets Initiative, a multi-agency effort to “transform nine under-served and under-invested corridors” throughout the district.  DMPED is working with the D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT) and the Office of Planning (OP) to design “mixed use development projects, storefront improvements, transportation, streetscapes, and transit improvements along these corridors.”  Yes! was awarded a $900,000 Great Streets grant as part of this program.ACCESS TO FOOD

The grocery store is located in a new building with more than 100 rental units of affordable housing. The development is on Pennsylvania Avenue in the Fairlawn neighborhood of Southeast D.C. The building itself opened in June and “the units are slated for residents who earn 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) or less.”

However, accessibility is a key concern, as it is in much of the District east of the Anacostia River. The closest metro is on the other side of the river – the Potomac Avenue Metro station, which is about 1.2 miles away. And east of the river, there is the Blue Line’s Benning Road Metro stop, 2.3 miles from the store, and on the Green Line, it’s Naylor Road, 1.8 miles from the store.

A recent report by DC Hunger Solutions found that the District’s grocery stores are distributed very unevenly by ward. And transportation is generally more limited in lower income areas of the city. These two factors limit supermarket access and thus, access to higher quality, fresh foods. Although the location of Yes! Market is in an area that needs a grocery store, the fact that it is on a major transit corridor far from the Metro poses limitations. According to Sherita Evans, a community advocate and resident from Ward 8:

“The new Yes! Organic Market is not accessible. It would entail you walking across the bridge from Potomac Avenue on a main throughway. You would have to cross over a bridge and four to six lanes of traffic. There are buses that run there, but it wouldn’t be very accessible for the elderly and disabled, especially if you are doing a month’s worth of shopping. It looks very nice on the outside…I just wish it was a little more accessible.”

The fact that some people are limited to their communities for food shopping is the reason D.C. Councilmember Mary M. Cheh is introducing the Feed Act. The bill is meant to attract grocery stores to low-income communities through creation of public-private partnerships.

But it’s still hard to get around Wards 7 and 8. Evans describes, “Transportation is a work in progress. There’s still a lot of inaccessible areas, especially with increase in fares. But Yes! Organic Market is a good opportunity for the community, and I look forward to having the market in the neighborhood.”

What does access to healthy foods have to do with defeating poverty?

Not only does the presence of affordable fresh food in a community have the potential to improve residents’ nutrition and overall health, but attracting full-service grocery stores also can boost the local economy – grocery retail creates jobs, generates tax revenue, draws foot traffic to support neighboring businesses, and helps spur other development.

In our recent report, When Healthy Food Is Out of Reach: An Analysis of the Grocery Gap in the District of Columbia, D.C. Hunger Solutions, along with Social Compact, documented an alarming gap in access to full-service grocery stores in the District.

Findings from the report include:

• The ratio of full-service grocery stores to residents varies widely among the District’s wards. Ward 3 has five times as many full-service grocers per capita as Ward 4.
• On average, residents of Wards 4, 5, and 7 must travel longer distances than residents in other wards to reach the closest full-service grocery store.
• The District loses more than $112 million in annual grocery revenues to neighboring jurisdictions because existing grocery retail is insufficient to meet residents’ demand.
• Some areas of the District—particularly in Wards 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8—are underserved by full-service grocery retail, compared to other areas. (The recent closure of one of Ward 5’s three full-service grocery stores has compounded the problem.)

Low-income residents bear the brunt of the grocery gap’s effects. For families struggling to make ends meet, lacking access to full-service grocers impacts both their wallets and their health.  Families whose budgets are already stretched to the limits don’t have the extra money to pay for additional transportation costs to reach distant grocery stores or for the typically higher prices in small corner stores.

And the grocery gap is detrimental to the health and viability of city as a whole.  However, it represents opportunities for economic development, job creation, and a more vibrant city.  Thus, the report concludes with a recommendation that D.C. follow the lead of Pennsylvania, New York City (and state), and several other cities and states, and launch an initiative to attract full-service grocers to underserved parts of the city.

Councilmembers Mary Cheh (Ward 3), Kwame Brown (At-Large), David Catania (At-Large), and Tommy Wells (Ward 6) in July introduced the FEED DC Act, which, according to Councilmember Cheh’s press release aims to:

• Create a public-private partnership to attract and renovate grocery stores in food deserts;
• Designate a “Grocery Ambassador” in the District government;
• Help District grocery and corner stores offer healthier foods by providing grants, loans, tax credits, equipment, and other financial and technical assistance; and
• Provide incentives for new or existing District food retailers to purchase energy-efficient commercial refrigeration and freezer systems in the District.

Closing the grocery gap in the District by encouraging more grocers to locate in underserved areas would help reduce hunger, improve public health and nutrition, and reduce costs for low-income residents – and it should be a centerpiece of the city’s current and future health, economic development, job creation, and community revitalization initiatives.

If you are interested in learning more about access to healthy food and efforts to close the grocery gap, visit our website: www.dchunger.org.  There, you also will find updates on the FEED DC Act, and potential opportunities to get involved.

July 23, 2010

Helder Gil, Legislative Affairs Specialist
Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs

Re: Proposed Regulations to Amend Chapter 5 of Title 24 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations (Vendors)

D.C. Hunger Solutions appreciates this opportunity to submit comments regarding the proposed regulations to amend the vending regulations set forth in Chapter 5 of Title 24 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations. See D.C. Register Vol. 57, No. 26 (June 25, 2010). D.C. Hunger Solutions seeks to create a hunger-free community and thereby improve the nutrition, health, economic security, and well-being of low-income District residents.
We support the proposed vending regulations’ creation of a Class C Vending Business License for public markets, which exempts farmers’ markets (and similar markets) from many of the myriad regulations that govern design, placement, and other aspects of traditional of vending trucks, carts, and stands. And we concur with the comments submitted by the D.C. Farmers’ Market Collaborative.

D.C. Hunger Solutions is pleased that the District recognizes the importance of access for all residents to healthy food.

• We applaud the move by DCRA, within the proposed regulations (Section 528.2), to expand access to healthy food, by giving priority for Roadway Vending Locations to Mobile Vendors selling only fruits and vegetables. We understand from conversations with Samuel Williams of DCRA that the intent of Section 528.2 is to pave the way for a healthy vending program in the District.

• We also understand from Sam Williams that the Vending Development Zones described in the proposed vending regulations will create opportunities for healthy vending and other innovative businesses. We support this proposal and encourage the District to prioritize fresh produce within Vending Development Zones, and to use new vending concepts to expand access to fresh produce in underserved communities and job opportunities for District residents.

• The District also took an important step in helping create new potential sites for the sale of produce when, with passage of the Healthy Schools Act of 2010, it amended the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations to facilitate access to healthy foods at public recreation facilities. See Healthy Schools Act of 2010, Section 304: “… The provisions of this section shall not preclude the use of public recreation facilities by programs to provide community access to healthy foods, such as farmers’ markets.”

To ensure the success of the healthy food vending, it is essential to create a set of clear, easy-to-follow guidelines for potential vendors and public market managers who seek to sell fresh produce and other nutritious foods. The District also must identify sites that can support the successful sale of produce, in particular, for communities that lack access to sufficient nutritious food and in many cases, are suffering from high rates of obesity.

We look forward to working with DCRA and other agencies (e.g., the Department of Health and the Department of Transportation) to help make healthy vending a success, particularly in areas underserved by fresh produce.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments. Please contact D.C. Hunger Solutions at 202- 986-2200 (ext. 3041) if you have any questions or would like to discuss anything.
Sincerely,
Alexandra Ashbrook
Director

Kristin Roberts
Community Nutrition Associate

Yet even the smallest seed can, with care, grow into great bounty. So, recently, at our Southeast facility, we’ve started planting some seeds in the one part of our building that isn’t already bursting at the seams: the roof.

Up to this point, the roof has primarily been known as a great place to get locked out on. But now it features the budding of a small experimental container garden. So far this season, we have been growing radishes, tomatoes, and several types of herbs, including parsley, mint and oregano. Someday soon, we hope this garden will be the inspiration for lots of inter-generational learning, as well as “some darn good cooking.”

Sherita Evans, Community Resources Coordinator

So says Sherita Evans, our southeast community resources coordinator and all-around community advocate, who sees this new project as a logical next step in the evolution of our services to the community. “We lack these kinds of green spaces and educational places here in the community,” she explains. “We’re hungry down here– not just for food but for nourishment of the mind and the spirit. And here at Bread for the City, we’re not just feeding people’s bodies–we feed souls.”

Sherita adds that the recent loss of Food Program Director Ted Pringle has motivated her to redouble commitment to the garden project. “As a site of rebirth and growth,” she says, “this is a proper memorial to Ted.”

Though its productive capacity will be limited, the garden can produce ample herbs to complement the food from our pantry, which will be especially great for our new cooking workshops. This makes it a special complement to our Nutrition Initiative: an opportunity to demonstrate the cooking process from start to finish. “We want to show clients that growing your own food isn’t hard even in small spaces like balconies and window sills,” says Sharon Gruber, our Nutrition Consultant. “And the results are that much better!

Sharon’s workshops can include basic gardening and the use of fresh herbs and veggies

Despite the small scale of the project, we see big implications — like the opportunity for parent-child gardening classes, which could bring families closer together while bringing them closer to the food they eat. Recent research has show childhood fruit and vegetable consumption doubles when children are exposed to the process of growing and preparing their food. Moreover, “food habits and eating patterns learned in early childhood continue into later childhood and early adulthood…This means that emphasizing healthy food choices at an early age can have a major impact on a person’s future health,” says a study recently published in the journal Nutrition and Dietetics.

One driving force behind the project’s progress so far has been Anna Melton, a familiar volunteer face around Bread for the City Southeast. Anna, who recently moved to the neighborhood, has cultivated a community garden in her own backyard, and believes in the transformative power of communal green space.

Anna approached Garden District, a popular garden store in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. We’re pleased to say that Garden District provided our new garden with its first donation: 4 bags of soil, a few pots and several plants, including tomatoes, oregano and parsley. Old City Green also pledged six pots of mint and nine pot of stevia, a natural sweetener that will provide a healthy alternative to the processed sugar found in most packaged and prepared foods.

Most exciting of all: Frager’s Hardware (just across the river from us) pledged to donate marjoram, basil, fennel, chives, catnip (which you can actually cook with), and sage — but when Anna came to pick it up, they also decided to chip in about 5 flats of cabbage and cauliflower. “[The plants] don’t look great, since it’s near the end of the growing season, so people might not have been eager to buy them, and they might otherwise have gone to waste” says an excited Anna. “But they’re still very much alive and will thrive with a little bit of attention and sun.” Altogether, this donation has more than doubled the size of our fledgling garden — thank you Frager’s!

Anna now plans to canvas additional local hardware and garden stores, and is looking for help and donations. She says: “We are hoping for pots of all sizes and types, vegetable and herb seedlings and cuttings, potting soil and plant supports (ie: trellises and garden wire). If you would like to help, please contact me at anna.r.melton@gmail.com“

Above all, this project is ultimately about the two things that Bread for the City strives for most: dignity and respect. Says Anna, “even having a small pot of something you can say you grew yourself is pretty amazing.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl7H0NFrRHw

Jonathon has spent his last two summers working at the Washington Youth Garden. During this last school year, he chose to continue his time with us by coming every day after school to complete his school’s required community service hours. Jonathon’s connection with the Washington Youth Garden came by way of Kaiser Permanente’s Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) program. WYG partners with Kaiser as a placement for the youth participants in their HEAL initiative. Jonathon became connected with the HEAL program through the Port Town Youth Council, which does great work locally to  educate and engage children in adopting healthier lifestyles.

Jonathon also writes on our blog. You can check out some of his writings and his vegetable of the month series there.

Katherine Bryant is an intern with the D.C. Farm to School Network, and a seasoned community food security advocate.  This blog describes her recent farm to school “field-trip” to Delaware and the Eastern Shore.

Greetings from the watermelon capital of the world!

I had the honor of joining a small group of Washington, DC school food service providers, D.C. Farm to School Network Coordinator Andrea Northup, and a D.C. City Council staffer on a trip to Delaware – a fitting ‘initiation’ into the role of D.C. Farm to School Network intern. The goal of the trip was to get a feel Delaware’s local food supply, and explore how to connect th

at supply with the demand for local foods in the D.C. school system. Our knowledgeable and well-connected host, fourth-generation watermelon farmer and Delaware Fruit and Vegetable Association president David Marvel, led our energetic and passionate group on a wonderful journey of learning, networking, and of course – eating!

Just a few hours from D.C., Delmarva (a catchy name for the Eastern Shore region of Delaware Maryland, and Virginia) makes its mark as the epicenter of watermelon production.  They produce a notable portion of the country’s corn and lima bean yield as well. Our first stop was the S.E.W. Friel sweet corn farm. We were able to snag a few minutes with the farmers amidst the busyness of the growing season full in swing – which means around the clock harvesting, packing, distributing and marketing of products. We stood in awe of the over 13-feet tall machines capable of harvesting 60,000 lbs of corn per hour.  We chatted with some of the many folks who work in concert to bring that sweet corn all the way from seed to harvester to tractor-trailer truck to storage facility to point-of-sale (e.g. supermarket) to a family’s refrigerator.

Would you have guessed that both schoolchildren and Delmarva watermelons use the same form of transportation? In our exploration of the watermelon’s journey from farm to table, we learned that retired school buses are rendered windowless and accompany teams of migrant workers as they walk through fields tossing watermelons on board.  The roads of Delaware are flooded with melon-filled busses on their way to washing facilities, auctions or markets. We saw Lakeside Farms, a family-owned operation where watermelons are grown, washed and packed for shipping.  And we watched in fascination at the Laurel Produce Auction as truckloads of locally-grown produce were paraded and sold to the highest bidder. From mid-July until mid-September, the Auction sells an average of over 2 million watermelons!

We paid a visit to the Kenny Brothers cucumber sorting and grading facility, for a glance into how a cucumber becomes a pickle. The facility washes, sorts and ships 15-20 truckloads per day to local pickle manufacturers – each truckload containing five-acres worth of cucumbers!

Over lunch, we had the opportunity to meet and share ideas and best practices with the inspired folks behind the Delaware Farm to School Network – a coalition of Delaware Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, and private/non-profit sector partners led by Nemours Health & Prevention Services.  We also stopped at Fifer’s Orchard and Market tasting some of the best peaches in Delaware.  And of course, no day would have been complete without a stop at the Delaware State Fair complete with animal auctions, 4-H and FFA displays, kettle corn, and John Deere farm equipment.

The trip offered a valuable perspective on the scale of production needed to feed the children of Washington, DC; the kindness and generosity of those local food producers and their willingness to meet that demand; and the tremendous process involved in getting food from farm to cafeteria tray.  In the end, we piled into our van, District-bound and laden with some of the best fruits and vegetables available in Delaware, with big dreams for schools and growers and how to narrow the gap between them.

By Katherine Bryant

As an active DCPS parent, and a program director at the Capital Area Food Bank, I recognized almost every face in the room – fellow parent activist Constance Newman; garden educator Kacie Warner; and anti-hunger advocate Kristin Roberts; just to name a few.  Each of those wonderful stakeholders could be so much more than just a face in the crowd.  We could be valuable assets to the DCPS school meal system, and advocates in support of the changes you plan to make.

Since coming in to town a few months ago, the DCPS food services team has undertaken incredible efforts to transform D.C. school meals. This has been a challenge, given that D.C. school meals have a rocky history plagued by contract mismanagement, financial accountability issues, food safety concerns, and inconsistent leadership.  Jeff Mills and his team have inherited a 60,000 meal-a-day beast of a system, and have been quick to make big promises about how they’re going to turn it around on a dime.  To their credit, they’ve made huge expansions to breakfast in the classroom, piloting supper programs at after-school programs, taking on two new vendors as pilot projects, and hiring new staff.  And there are big promises of things to come, such as a garden-kitchen educational program, special celebratory events, a totally new menu based on unprocessed, fresh foods, 20% local produce, and compliance with IOM standards… the list goes on.

But who’s calling the shots?  What is the end goal?  Where are we headed?

All the people in that room last night are on the same side as Jeff and his team.  We want the great things for our kids and our community that they rattled off – more fresh, unprocessed foods, more local produce, better access to school meals.  But we understand that it won’t be easy to get those foods on D.C. cafeteria trays, and then get kids eat them.  You’ll need the community to be your allies in this.  But a few things need to change.

First, you must engage us. We need a formal system for providing input and giving feedback.  It is not enough for you to stand in front of us and tell us what’s happening.  We need to have a formal “Advisory Committee” comprised of a wide swath of community members and national experts to be a part of the planning and execution of the new DCPS school meal operation.  We need this NOW, as plans for the future are being shaped and defined, not after they have already been developed.

Second, slow down. Nobody is expecting a barrage of reforms that will solve every aspect of the DCPS school meals all at once.  The issues plaguing the DCPS school food system run deep, and have been decades in the making (as you probably know better than we do).  We would rather see a few simple, measurable goals achieved than dozens of efforts pulled together quickly.

Third, show us a strategic plan. This city has seen too many well-intentioned but piecemeal efforts to improve the health and well-being of our youth.  We need to be thinking not months, but years into the future at what DCPS food services will look like.  Tony Tata himself said that DCPS has no idea what this operation will look like after this year, and that’s unacceptable.  Other large, urban school districts have overcome the same issues we are facing and are serving the types of meals we strive to serve.  Let us learn from their successes and failures, and develop a strategic plan to get where we all want to go, with attention to the unique strengths and weaknesses we have here in the nation’s capital.

Fourth, be transparent. Keep us in the loop with your plans, the criteria you use to evaluate foods, how you spend our taxpayer dollars, where your food is coming from and what’s down the pipeline.  It’s not enough for you to give us vague responses to our questions from time to time – stay ahead of the curve and provide us with concrete information.

You can have our 100% support in these efforts if you engage us, and make calculated, strategic change towards our common goals, and are transparent with the community you’re serving.  And believe me, it is going to take our support and buy-in on a much deeper level to realize the ambitious goals that we all have for D.C. school food.  We owe it to the thousands of children who depend on these meals each day to work together on this while we have the chance.  Let’s get it right.

Communities east of the Anacostia River suffer from an infamous shortage of grocery stores, and here at Bread for the City we’re doing our part to counteract that lack: we’ve made our food pantry a lot more like the shopping experience.

We’ve previewed this new project on Beyond Bread before: in A Week of Choice, food pantry coordinator Jeffrey Wankel told you that, “after two successful dry-runs, Client Choice…went live for an entire week at our Southeast Center,” teaching us all a very important lesson. “Our clients love the ability to choose what food they receive from our pantry. This alone makes it a priority for us to implement Client Choice as a permanent feature of our food program.”

So we’re pleased to report that the Southeast pantry is now all Client Choice all the time–to the rave reviews of clients, staff and volunteers.

According to Food Coordinator Tony Weldon, the Client Choice program “sets us apart from a church basement, or something like that, even just with the visual effect,” he explains.

The pantry now boasts new shelving units and a layout that is carefully constructed to guide clients through the array of options. After a few months of tweaking, Jeff is proud to note that the “cycle time” (i.e., the average length of each client’s time checking in and receiving their bags) is now comparable to the previous system.

Most of all, the clients love it. “This is their words,” Tony said: “‘Wow! Ya’ll stepped your game up!”

Another positive side-effect of this new system: volunteers and clients actually get to know each other. “Client choice has opened the lines of communication..and there is noticeably more constructive feedback.” Volunteers are able to learn more about the clients they serve, and clients enjoy seeing familiar faces month after month.

Meanwhile, Client Choice has made our staff less busy. That may seem counterintuitive, since there are more decisions being made with every single bag we give out. And yet, prior to Choice, Tony and his food pantry staff were responsible not only for distributing bags to clients, but also for supervising the volunteers who stuffed bags. Managing both sides — on top of the day-to-day logistics of orders and deliveries and so on — stretched pantry staff to their limits. With Client Choice, clients pack their own bags, while volunteers guide them from station to station. It’s all one process. Tony and his staff still oversee pantry operations, but they’re left with more time to chat with clients, get to know volunteers, and tinker with big-picture aspects of the system.

“We still get to see their smiles, and that is great,” said Tony.

Client Choice has become more than just an experimental program, or a way to shake things up in the food pantry world. It is a chance for our clients to  exercise their independence even in the most difficult of circumstances. And it is a testament to the commitment and dedication of the late, great Ted Pringle, who — in his final months at the pantry — took just one look at the Client Choice experiment and declared his utmost support for the program.

Jeff, who helped develop the Client Choice program in SE, hopes to “make Client Choice an organization-wide initiative,” once the pending Northwest Center expansion broadens the food pantry space to allow for a similar setup. Eventually, Jeff hopes both food pantries will feature slanted produce tables and a larger variety of food, to give our clients an even more independent shopping experience. It’s going to be difficult, budget-wise, but Jeff says that “this is something we just have to do. We really have no choice.”