2026年3月8日 / 美国东部时间上午10:00 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
三十年来，美国农业部每年都会发布一份关于美国面临粮食不安全问题人口数量的报告。特朗普政府终止了这份报告，称其“冗余”且“政治化”。但消除数据并不能抹去问题——也无法消除解决问题的愿望。
在科罗拉多州博尔德附近的社区食品共享中心，购物车排起了长队。33岁的香农·帕特里克耐心等待着。她熟悉这里的流程，却不情愿成为这里的常客。
她说，随着12岁孩子的成长，她购物车里的食物可能只够维持一周。
帕特里克是一位三个孩子的单身母亲，全职从事行为治疗师工作，帮助自闭症儿童。尽管有专业知识和学历，她每月2000美元的薪水却几乎难以维持生计。加上房租、学生贷款和孩子的衣物开销，留给食物的钱所剩无几。
“我以为拿到学士学位、硕士学位就能打开很多扇门，”她说，“我就不用依赖政府了。但现实似乎并非如此。”
尽管全职工作，香农·帕特里克仍需依靠科罗拉多州博尔德附近的社区食品共享中心来养活家人。哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
像大多数面临粮食不安全的人一样，她不愿谈论这件事，但为了向他人证明他们并不孤单，她还是同意接受采访。“社会让你觉得自己低人一等，或者觉得你因为接受援助而肮脏，”她说，“我甚至感到内疚，觉得自己有孩子却照顾不好他们。”
根据美国农业部的数据，近4800万美国人得不到足够的食物。令人震惊的是，其中约1400万是儿童。
美国最大的饥饿救济组织“美国反饥饿行动”首席执行官克莱尔·巴宾诺-方特诺特表示：“有一种说法是‘应得的饥饿’，但现实并非如此。饥饿常常发生在人们尽管努力工作的情况下。”
巴宾诺-方特诺特上任仅两年，新冠疫情就爆发了。“疫情期间，国会两党在饥饿问题上达成了最广泛的共识，”她说，“粮食不安全率降至历史最低水平之一。大多数人都不知道这是真的，但确实如此。”
但疫情之后呢？“我想我们以为问题解决了，”她说。
巴宾诺-方特诺特表示，疫情至少证明了饥饿是可以解决的。
我们在路易斯安那州南部的第二收获食品银行见到了她，这里是“美国反饥饿行动”旗下数百个食品储藏室和食品银行之一。去年，该组织通过这样的厨房分发了近60亿份餐食，但仍然供不应求。
“从镜头里你能看到很多食物，”巴宾诺-方特诺特说，“这可能会让人误以为食物充足，但实际上并非如此。我见过最难过的事之一是，食品银行工作人员不得不拒绝一些求助者。”
克莱尔·巴宾诺-方特诺特，“美国反饥饿行动”首席执行官，在路易斯安那州南部的第二收获食品银行。哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
一个家庭的善意传承
克莱尔是家中第一个上大学的孩子，她还半工半读完成了法学院学业。但后来她遭遇了挫折。“我走进自己狭小的公寓厨房，发现家里竟然一无所有可吃。”
这段记忆让她情绪激动：“很奇妙，一件多年前发生的事，现在回想起来仿佛就在眼前。”
她听说过救世军，但不愿求助，却又不得不去。“我记得当时说话声音小得像耳语，”巴宾诺-方特诺特说，“然后我看到一位女士，她脸上带着温暖美丽的笑容，问我：‘孩子，你需要帮助吗？’我说：‘是的，女士。’”
这个善意的举动伴随了巴宾诺-方特诺特一生。她后来成为一名税务律师，升任沃尔玛执行副总裁兼全球财务主管，这是一份极具分量的工作。但2015年，她被诊断出患有乳腺癌。她说，这让她重新审视自己的人生优先级。于是她辞去了沃尔玛的工作，做出了一个她认为父母最能理解的决定。
玛丽·爱丽丝和沃伦·巴宾诺夫妇已过世，但在他们的家乡路易斯安那州奥佩卢萨，这个家庭因帮助、喂养和关爱几乎所有需要帮助的孩子而闻名。以至于巴宾诺-方特诺特有107个兄弟姐妹——有些是亲生的，有些是收养的，有些是寄养的，但她不愿透露具体情况：“我不回答这个问题，因为不回答反而让我能说：这其实是我们家庭中最不重要的部分。”
克莱尔的姐姐辛西娅告诉我们：“父母坚信要喂养邻里。我永远不会忘记有一天，一个年轻人穿着病号服直接从医院来到家里，说：‘巴宾诺夫人说如果我饿了就来家里，她会给我食物。’我回答说：‘当然！’并为他准备了一餐。”
今年圣诞节前夕，约二十多位巴宾诺家族成员聚集在老房子里，为附近的老年中心打包食物盒，就像他们的母亲过去做的那样。
克莱尔说：“只要我们继续这样做，就能延续母亲认为重要的东西，让这些精神永存。”
为老年中心打包的食物盒。哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
“看见需求”是克莱尔从小被教导的事，“治愈需求”是她实践多年的事。而认识到自身需求，也为她开启了人生的新篇章。
七年多之后，克莱尔·巴宾诺-方特诺特将于下月卸任“美国反饥饿行动”首席执行官。未来她将做什么？她自己也不确定。61岁的她和丈夫，以及两个已成年的孩子，可能会开始尝试成为寄养父母。她说：“我对这份工作有深深的投入，只要还有需要解决的问题，我就会一直致力于这项工作。”
回到科罗拉多州，香农·帕特里克正参与着这项未完成的工作。孩子们得到了照顾，但谁来照顾她呢？她说有时为了确保孩子有饭吃，自己会忍饥挨饿。但本周晚餐有早餐卷饼，大家看起来都很开心。不过下周，这个家庭的饥饿计时器又将归零。
“这并不意味着我们是坏人，也不意味着我们不值得，”帕特里克说，“我们仍然应该能够吃饭。仅仅因为收入低，并不意味着我们不配和其他人一样享受生活。”
The persistence of hunger in America
March 8, 2026 / 10:00 AM EDT / CBS News
For some 30 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has released an annual report on the number of Americans living with food insecurity. The Trump administration ended that report, calling it “redundant” and “politicized.” But getting rid of the data doesn’t erase the problem – or the desire to fix it.
At the Community Food Share near Boulder, Colorado, there is a traffic jam of shopping carts. Thirty-three-year-old Shannon Patrick waited patiently. She knows the routine. She’s a reluctant regular here.
With the way her 12-year-old is growing, she says her cart of goods may last a week.
Patrick is a single mother of three, working full time as a behavioral technician, helping kids with autism. But despite her profession and her education, she barely gets by on her $2,000 a month salary. Tack on rent, student loans, and clothes for the kids, and there’s very little left for food.
“I thought that if I got my bachelor’s degree, if I got my master’s degree, that that would open up so many doors,” she said. “I wouldn’t have to rely on the government. But it just seems like it’s not like that.”
Though she works fulltime, Shannon Patrick finds she need help from the Community Food Share, near Boulder, Colorado, to feed her family. CBS News
Like most dealing with food insecurity, she’d rather not talk about it. But she agreed to, for us, because she wanted to show others they’re not alone. “It’s just like this feeling that society puts on you that you’re less than, or you’re dirty, because you have to get this assistance,” she said. “And I feel almost guilty that, like, I have these children and I should be able to take care of them, but I’m failing.”
According to the USDA, almost 48 million Americans don’t get enough to eat. Shockingly, about 14 million of those are kids.
Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, the CEO of Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization, said, “There’s a notion of earned hunger. The reality is, that is not manifestly true. Hunger happens here often times in spite of a lot of hard work.”
Just two years into Babineaux-Fontenot’s tenure, the pandemic hit. “During COVID, one of the areas that Congress had the most bipartisan engagement on was hunger,” she said. “Food insecurity rates went down to one of the lowest rates we’ve ever had. Most people have no idea that it’s true, but it is.”
But what happened after COVID? “I guess we thought it was done,” she said.
If nothing else, Babineaux-Fontenot says, COVID proved that hunger can be fixed.
We caught up with her at Southern Louisiana’s Second Harvest Food Bank, one of the hundreds of pantries and food banks under the Feeding America umbrella. Out of kitchens like this one, Feeding America distributed nearly six billion meals last year.
But it still fell short.
Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, the CEO of Feeding America, at the Second Harvest Food Bank in Southern Louisiana. CBS News
“You can see in the shot of the camera a lot of food,” Babineaux-Fontenot said. “And that probably leads to a misconception that there is enough food. There’s not enough food. Some of the saddest things I’ve ever seen with food bankers is when they have to turn people away.”
One family’s beneficence
Claire was the first of her family to go to college. She put herself through law school, too. And then, she hit a bump in the road. “I went into my refrigerator, my little teeny-weeny apartment, and I realized that I literally had nothing to eat.”
The memory made her emotional. “It’s interesting how something can happen that long ago and how it can feel like it’s happening right now,” she said.
She’d heard of the Salvation Army. She didn’t want to go. She had to go. “I can remember barely talking above a whisper,” Babineaux-Fontenot said. “And then I remember this lady, she walked up to me and she just had this beautiful, warm smile, and she said, ‘You need some help, baby?’ And I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”
The power of that single act of kindness followed Babineaux-Fontenot the rest of her life. She went on to become a tax attorney, rising to executive vice president and global treasurer for Walmart, no small job. But in 2015, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a tap on the shoulder, she says, to re-prioritize her life. So, she quit Walmart, and made a leap that she thought her parents would understand more than anyone.
Mary Alice and Warren Babineaux are both gone now. But in their hometown of Opelousas, Louisiana, the family was known for helping shelter, feed and love almost any child they knew was in trouble. So much so that Babineaux-Fontenot ended up with 107 siblings. Some of them are biological, some adopted, some fostered – but Babineaux-Fontenot won’t tell you which is which. “I don’t answer that question, mostly because, in the not answering, I get to say this: that is the least important thing about our family,” she said.
Cynthia, one of Claire’s multiple sisters, told us, “My parents truly believed in feeding the neighborhood. I will never forget one day, a young man came to the home, directly from the hospital, with his hospital gown. He said, ‘Mrs. Babineaux said if I’m hungry, come to the house and I will get food.’ And my response was, ‘Absolutely!’ And I prepared a meal for him.”
This past Christmas, about two dozen Babineauxes gathered at the old family house to make food boxes for a nearby senior center, just as their mom used to do.
Claire said, “As long as we do this, we keep the things that she thought were important, we keep those alive.”
Food boxes packed up for a senior center. CBS News
Seeing need is something Claire was taught. Healing it is something she’s practiced. And recognizing need, even in herself, is opening the door to her next chapter.
After more than seven years, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot will be stepping down as Feeding America’s CEO next month. For what? She’s not really sure. At 61, she and her husband, with two grown kids of their own, might just start being foster parents themselves, she says: “I am deeply committed to this work, and I will always be committed to this work as long as there’s work to be done.”
Back in Colorado, Shannon Patrick is part of that unfinished work. The kids are cared for, but who is there to care for her? She says there are times she has gone hungry to make sure her children are fed. But this week there are breakfast burritos for dinner. Everyone seemed happy. Still, next week this family’s hunger clock resets back … to zero.
“That doesn’t mean that we’re bad people, or that we’re less worthy,’ Patrick said. “We still should be able to eat. Just because we’re low-income doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve to do the same things as other people.”