2018 Honoree: Doreen Wohl
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Doreen Wohl, born into an English Quaker family in 1932, came to United States in 1954 to work with the American Friends Service Committee and later with the National Council of Churches. Her work with migratory farm workers harvesting beans in Pennsylvania, sugar beets in North Dakota, cherries and pickles in Michigan, and cotton in Texas, immediately exposed Doreen to the underside of the American dream.
From 1956 to 1990 Doreen worked with South Side Settlement House in Columbus Ohio and University Settlement and Kingsbridge Heights Community Center in New York City developing family day care, after school youth programs, and residential summer camping.
For twenty years between 1992 and 2012 Doreen transformed the West Side Coalition Against Hunger Emergency Food Program. Guiding the organization into a participatory cooperative, with customer volunteers and supermarket style food selection, it aims to change our perceptions of hungry people by working in partnership with them. The program offers social service counseling, entitlement enrollment and a chef training program, and customer volunteers are involved in all aspects, including serving on the board. By 1997 WSCAH was actively sharing its “Customer-Cooperative Supermarket Model” broadly, and that outreach continues; the model has been implemented in New York City and across the United States.
Interview
Video by Julia Fitzgerald, interviewed by Rachel Bernstein
Awards ceremony
Video by Julia Fitzgerald