Add Passion and Stir

Hosted by Share Our Strength

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367

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Every other Wednesday, “Add Passion and Stir” shares the inspirational stories of individuals who set their sights on a problem and use their strengths to create solutions. Hosted by Share Our Strength ’s founder Billy Shore, a leading advocate in food justice for 40 years, we convene leaders from the worlds of hospitality, education, government, and beyond tackling issues like hunger, systemic racism, and access to education. Join us to learn how you can share your strength. Follow us on Twitter @AddPassionStir and Instagram @billshore and like us on Facebook . ]]>

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60 recent

November 5, 202633 min

Congresswoman-Elect Paige Cognetti’s Fight to End Childhood Hunger

Newly elected to Congress in November of 2026, Mayor Paige Cognetti brings a commitment to ending childhood hunger from Scranton to the national stage. In this special re-release of Add Passion and Stir , Billy Shore revisits his 2023 conversation with Cognetti, then Scranton’s mayor, with a new introduction on the midterm results and the anti-hunger work ahead. Cognetti shares how serving on the school board—and becoming a mother—deepened her understanding of families’ struggles. She discusses removing barriers to food assistance, building partnerships across health care and education, reaching immigrant and refugee communities, and making government work for people. At the heart of the conversation is a conviction that feeding children should bring people together, not divide them. Billy’s new introduction connects that local leadership with urgent national priorities: protecting SNAP, expanding access to school and summer meals, and strengthening support for families. Download this timely conversation about bipartisan problem-solving, community trust, and turning a commitment to children into action. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

October 28, 202647 min

How America’s Grocery Giant Chose Ending Hunger As Its Cause

Albertsons Companies Foundation President and Executive Director Christy Duncan Anderson talks with Billy Shore and Lillian Singh about what the grocery chain’s foundation is doing to fight hunger in neighborhoods across the country. “We asked our neighbors and our customers what change they would like to see in their neighborhoods. The data came back and it was really astounding: people cared about a whole bunch of different issues, but hunger rose above all of them,” says Duncan Anderson. The Nourishing Neighbors initiative is a partnership between the foundation, Share Our Strength, and local food banks, soup kitchens, and community organizations to help get food to at-risk children, adults, seniors, and families. “[We need to] move the understanding of the issue of food insecurity beyond the feeling that, ‘I've put a can in a bin, and so therefore I've solved hunger.’ Food today is not necessarily a solution for tomorrow.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

October 13, 202650 min

Hunger Spikes in Congress’s Own Backyard

Hunger in the greater Washington region—and food assistance alone cannot solve the crisis. Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank, joins Billy Shore to discuss the food bank’s 2026 Hunger Report, which finds that 38% of the region’s residents experience food insecurity and 34% of its children live in food-insecure households. She explains how job losses, rising costs, and strained household budgets are forcing families to sacrifice their financial futures to meet today’s basic needs. The conversation also examines projected SNAP benefit losses and a promising approach to lasting change: connecting nutritious food with health care, transportation, education, and pathways to living-wage jobs. Muthiah shares how food-is-medicine programs and partnerships with colleges are helping people move toward greater stability—and why government support is essential to expanding those efforts. Download this episode of Add Passion and Stir for a candid conversation about feeding neighbors today, addressing hunger’s root causes, and building a safety net that works for the whole household. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

September 30, 202648 min

One Mayor, Two Moms; On Hunger Hitting Close To Home

Omaha Mayor John Ewing, Hastings, NE organizer Sierra Edmisten, and Bellevue, NE SNAP career navigator Alicia Fremont about food insecurity, poverty, SNAP cuts, and the pressure families face when groceries, school meals, child care, and work requirements collide. Mayor Ewing shares how Omaha mobilized after SNAP benefits were cut, raising $15 million to support food banks and pantries while investing in community gardens and weekend food programs for children. Edmisten and Fremont describe the lived reality behind the numbers: parents skipping meals, children recognizing when food is running low, families losing benefits over paperwork or income thresholds, and the lasting trauma of not knowing how to feed a family. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

September 16, 20261 hr 2 min

The Great Betrayal: Cutting America’s Most Vulnerable From SNAP

Why are millions of Americans losing SNAP food assistance—even when many remain eligible? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir , host Billy Shore speaks with Jason DeParle, poverty correspondent for The New York Times , and Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, about the sharp decline in SNAP participation, new administrative barriers, and the human consequences for children, families, seniors, and people with disabilities. DeParle shares reporting from Arizona, where SNAP participation has fallen by about half in one year and families describe hours-long waits, unanswered calls, and paperwork requirements that prevent eligible people from receiving food assistance. Parrott explains how changes in federal policy are shifting SNAP costs to states, creating new incentives to reduce enrollment and raising concerns that some states could ultimately end the program altogether. They also discuss the connection between food insecurity and mental health, the risks to Medicaid and ACA marketplace coverage, the impact on immigrant families, and what listeners can do to make policymakers understand the stakes. Listen to this urgent conversation about SNAP, hunger, food assistance, poverty, public policy, and the choices shaping who can afford groceries in America. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

September 2, 202655 min

When The Law Fails Families: The Human Cost of Detention

In this very special repeat episode of Add Passion and Stir, Billy Shore and Debbie Shore speak with attorney Corey Martin and former DHS attorney Jason Thomas about immigration detention, due process, and what humane policy should look like. In the five months since this episode first aired, more than an additional 140,000 people have been detained by ICE , according to The Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley and UCLA. Corey reveals the horrifying conditions she has seen inside the immigration detention center for families and children at Dilley, TX. Jason explains how the immigration system works from the government side, and both push for a more just, practical, and human response. To be part of the solution, learn more at the nonprofit law clinic Mass Deportation Defense . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

August 19, 202646 min

Edesia’s Navyn Salem Defines Humanity

In this very important re-airing of Add Passion and Stir , Navyn Salem, founder and CEO of the malnutrition social enterprise Edesia, discusses our shared humanity in caring for children all over the world. Edesia produces fortified, peanut-based products like Plumpy'Nut for humanitarian agencies like UNICEF, World Food Programme, and other NGOs working in emergency and conflict zones. “We feed children everywhere because that's what humanity is, and we do not want to lose our humanity. We are smart enough. We have enough resources. We're creative and innovative enough to feed every child on planet Earth,” Salem asserts. Edesia has been impacted by Trump Administration decisions around foreign aid in the last seven months. “I started speaking up and explaining to people that huge parts of humanitarian assistance that the US government does are a win-win for the world and they have to be continued,” she says. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

August 5, 202642 min

A CEO for Whom Social Purpose is Always in Fashion: Tony Spring on Leadership, Hospitality, and No Kid Hungry

Tony Spring, chairman and CEO of Macy’s, discusses his career path that began at Bloomingdale’s and led to more than 40 years in retail leadership. Tony reflects on the lessons he learned from Burger King, the importance of customer experience, and how Macy’s has worked to rebuild around hospitality, execution, and culture. The conversation also explores Macy’s partnership with Share Our Strength and No Kid Hungry, including how the company uses consumer roundups, employee volunteerism, and community campaigns to help fight childhood hunger. Listen to hear how business, service, and social purpose can work together to create a better experience for customers, colleagues, and communities. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

July 22, 202642 min

Food is Medicine: How the Rockefeller Foundation Is Reimagining Nutrition and Health

Devon Klatell of the Rockefeller Foundation talks about the growing “Food is Medicine” movement and why it matters for health, equity, and cost savings. Devon explains how the Foundation’s work evolved from agriculture and production to nutrition, chronic disease prevention, and better integration between food systems and health care. The conversation explores: what Food is medicine means in practice, how states and health systems are adopting it, why school meals and regenerative food systems matter, and what it will take to scale these programs nationally. Listen to hear how evidence, policy, and partnerships are turning a once-niche idea into a major public health strategy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

July 10, 202627 min

Patriarchs: Jefferson, Adams, and the Moral Reckoning to Found a Nation

From the producers of Add Passion and Stir , here is Patriarchs — a six-part audio drama about the most consequential friendship in American history, the one between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. As we emerge from the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Patriarchs invites listeners into the founding era with dramatic force, historical depth, and moral honesty, asking not only how America began, but who paid the price and what kind of republic it became. Written by award-winning playwright Jim McGrath and featuring Stacy Keach as Thomas Jefferson and Edward Gero as John Adams, the series opens in Philadelphia in 1776 and concludes on Independence Day in 1826. Every scene is drawn from real letters, speeches, and memoirs, bringing to life the friendship, rivalry, animosity, and reconciliation that shaped the early United States. Along the way, Patriarchs also gives voice to Abigail Adams, whose letters cut through ego and ideology, and centers Sally Hemings not as rumor but as a speaking, thinking presence whose life illuminates the brutal realities of slavery and sexual exploitation in the founding generation. This is history as drama, but it is also history as reckoning. Listen and subscribe to Patriarchs on your favorite podcast apps: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/patriarchs/id1896832143 https://open.spotify.com/show/033o4ZbOWxJjM3yHZ8cuBV https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/1e3165a6-b42f-471a-b5c6-ede68b01dcbf/patriarchs Please subscribe, rate, and review Patriarchs on your favorite podcast app so more listeners can discover the series and join the conversation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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