Food insecurity in the Kurdish American community does not look like the images in fundraising campaigns. It does not always look like empty cupboards. More often it looks like a family that has enough food but not the right food — not the halal meat they need for their diet, not the specific ingredients that allow them to cook familiar meals, not the variety that supports good health. It looks like an elderly man who knows how to cook exactly three American dishes and eats them on rotation because the Kurdish groceries are too expensive. It looks like a mother who is carefully rationing flour because she does not know when she will be able to buy more.

KASA’s food programs are designed with this specificity in mind. We try to provide not just calories but the actual foods that Kurdish families use — rice, lentils, halal protein, yogurt, the herbs and spices that make Kurdish cooking Kurdish. This costs more than a generic food package, but it provides something that a generic package cannot: a meal that feels like home.

Food security is also connected to everything else KASA does. A family that is food insecure cannot fully focus on language learning. A parent who is worried about where the next meal is coming from cannot be the cultural resource for their children that they want to be. Addressing food security is not separate from KASA’s mission of community strengthening — it is a prerequisite for it.