About This Episode

How do we meet the increased need COVID-19 is causing in our country? San Antonio Food Bank President and CEO Eric Cooper and Hotel Emma chef and culinary director John Brand talk to Debbie and Billy Shore about the effects the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their city. Billy Shore asks Cooper about the now iconic image of a massive line of cars outside the San Antonio Food Bank in April. “I saw the line and I just panicked. I thought we were going to run out of food,” says Cooper. However, they were able to meet the need that day. “I waited for the last car to be served. I went to apologize… but I was greeted with this resiliency and gratitude that was amazing,” he shares. “The biggest thing we’ve all learned is compassion - compassion for each other,” observes Brand, who used his restaurant to feed first-responders during the first months of the pandemic. “Where a lot of the world has retreated, we are able to connect on a deeper level with food,” he explains. The guests discuss the larger problem of hunger in America. “We never believed that we were going to solve hunger with a canned good. Hunger is a symptom of poverty and people in poverty have lots of barriers. It can’t be fish or teaching how to fish, it has to be both,” says Cooper. Listen to this important conversation with two San Antonio anti-hunger crusaders bearing witness to the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their community.