Abby J. Leibman,MAZON’s President & CEO, and
Mia Hubbard, MAZON’s Executive Vice President
Abby Leibman: When I was thinking about how to plan for this conversation, that there are all these questions that I have about your tenure, your commitment, your work with MAZON, that we just never have the time to sit down and really talk about. I mean, you are the longest-serving employee in MAZON’s 40-year history.
It’s always been evident to me that you have, in whatever role you’ve served here, a deep and abiding commitment to the concerns of people who are food insecure.
I want to start with what your observation was of the issues of food insecurity when you first began your work with MAZON.
Mia Hubbard: Well, thank you. I think when I joined MAZON in 1993, we as a nation were coming off of a period of really disinvesting in our government programs through the eighties and the Reagan era. So when I came on, I think MAZON really understood that we needed to engage community programs in this work and to get them to understand their role as advocates. And to understand that addressing the symptoms of the problem wasn’t enough, and that they really needed to engage in advocacy.
And then the other big piece of our work during those early years was building that next level, the state-level advocacy organizations. Many of the preeminent, successful, well-known statewide organizations that are part of this nation’s network of anti-hunger advocacy organizations, MAZON helped to start. So I think we can proudly take credit for engaging the grassroots of the hunger relief world to see their role as advocates and then to really invest in building a powerful network of state-level, anti-hunger advocacy organizations.
Abby Leibman: Do you think that part of that work was also helping people to recognize that the word advocacy isn’t scary?
Mia Hubbard: Yes, I think some people in the early years thought it was almost like a pejorative, and that people thought lobbying was kind of this icky thing. Research is part of advocacy. So educating the community about all of the different facets of how we can make broader change on this issue definitely was a big part of that.
Abby Leibman: Can you even remember the first sort of big advocacy effort that you personally engaged in?
Mia Hubbard: The big one would have been welfare reform, certainly, for MAZON. That was in 1996 and it was a turning point. Welfare reform really transformed the landscape of advocacy for our issue, because it meant that we had to start working on these programs at the state level in a different way. It unleashed all of these different ways that states could be involved in shaping how their food stamp program at the time, SNAP, worked, and it literally meant that we had to do advocacy in 50 different states.
Welfare reform transformed the field. It transformed the landscape for advocacy in our work, and it forced MAZON to start thinking about how we could be more sophisticated in how we addressed it. It wasn’t just enough to get food banks and pantries to be advocates. It wasn’t even just enough to support anti-hunger advocacy organizations. We really needed to broaden our work. So that was when we began to partner more and invest more in legal advocacy. And even in other types of advocacy. So I think that, to me, I will always remember that time, and we’re still dealing with the after-effects.
Abby Leibman: Well, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Mia Hubbard: I think probably the biggest thing that has evolved since I first came on at the organization is the fact that hunger has become a very partisan issue. I think it is hard not to see that Democrats, by and large, support increasing and bolstering our government safety net and certainly in this day, the majority of House Republicans, maybe even many Senate Republicans, I think, are not as committed to supporting our government safety net. It’s become a very partisan issue. It’s become frankly as partisan as abortion and gun control, and that has made it very difficult.
Abby Leibman: But changed MAZON’s response, or the way in which we respond?
Mia Hubbard: I mean, I think we’ve always strived to work across party lines. It does make the calculus of our work different in terms of who we can go to to move the kinds of policies that we want to move. With some of our populations, we’ve been able over time to build better relationships with folks who we may not agree with on a larger scale. But when we’re talking about veterans or military families, perhaps we can get a more sympathetic ear.
We’ve had to sharpen our political acumen and our thinking and our strategy, and the way we talk about issues, but I think at the end of the day we have always been an organization that feels the need to speak truth to power, and that has not changed. We do what we have to do to advocate on behalf of food-insecure people in this country. It is getting harder and harder. That’s just the reality of it.
Abby Leibman: I am struck by the fact that it’s hard for me to imagine anyone else having the kind of impact that you have, particularly around the work we did and we’re doing around tribal nations.
Mia Hubbard: I think it’s been a real privilege for me, for MAZON to work in that space. It’s required a lot of learning which I’m always happy to do. Part of what has been our approach as an organization is to listen and learn, and to really sit at the knee of some really amazing partners that we have in Indian country. We take that seriously. I think we follow, and we need to follow. We lead when we can. And I think that has served us well in that work and in those relationships.
Abby Leibman: What’s on the horizon? What do you see in MAZON’s future?
Mia Hubbard: It’s hard to pretend that we’re not in a very challenging moment, where seeing a horizon of hope is a big leap. We are definitely in a major fight for the foreseeable future, and I think I would hope that as an organization we’ll continue to be brave and persistent and creative in our work, in what is largely going to be defensive work.
But I do hope that MAZON will do what we’ve really done under your leadership, which is to take calculated risks and take some bigger swings. I hope we will not just settle for incremental change and nibbling on the edges. MAZON is not dependent on Federal funds. We are in a position to take some of those calculated risks, and to be more bold.
As anti-hunger advocates, we believe that people should have access to food, regardless of their background, regardless of their circumstance, regardless of what state they live in, what party’s in power. We want a safety net that recognizes people’s inherent dignity and that isn’t conditioned by things that don’t have anything to do with need, and that works for everyone, and that helps people thrive and succeed.
Abby Leibman: I love that as a view forward for us. Especially with the approach to advocacy that you and I have discussed. That it is our job to take risks, that’s what advocates do, you stick your neck out. And having leaders like you in this field, with the kind of history that you have, the deep and abiding respect you have for all of those working toward a better future is the way in which we can actualize both that vision and that commitment.
Mia Hubbard: Well, I’m eager to continue to push forward. Our values are the Jewish values that guide this organization and provide that kind of a North Star. Our belief in justice and dignity and equity and universal access to the kinds of programs that we advocate for when people need them – we’re going to get there.