Alumnus tells students of walk across U.S. to raise food insecurity awareness

A Culver Military Academy alumnus told students about how he’s walking across America to elevate the conversation about food insecurity while raising awareness and money to help solve the problem.

“I’m trying to approach this as I don’t have the answers but I’m trying to elevate the conversation and elevate the voices of the people on the front lines,” said Brian Christner ’79, owner of 110 Blackberry Farm in Culver, where customers pick their own blackberries.

Christner spoke Sunday, Dec. 8, at the Oxfam Hunger Banquet held annually at Culver Academies by the school’s Global Studies Institute to help students understand the problem of food insecurity in America.

Christner, who goes by the trail name “Blackberry Brian” while on the trail, said he has only one message as he walks across America: “We have so much in common.”

“I am neither Republican nor Democrat. And represent no religion as I walk across America. But I did have one message, I can take any two people from different times on the planet Earth and find more things they have in common than you can find differences,” he said. “Yet we focus on our differences, as opposed to what unites us. We are incredible when we work together.”

Food insecurity is unacceptable, so people have two choices: end poverty whether it be systemic, generational, situational, extreme, rural, or urban, or deal with food insecurity, he said.

“Faith based organizations have been the backbone of our food pantries in America, yet in the last 25 years, 40 million people have stop going to church, while demand for food has gone up dramatically. The question is: How do we fix this going forward?”

Christner began his 4,800-mile walk across America in February 2023 in Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware and he planned to walk along the northern route of the American Discovery Trail and finish at Point Reyes National Seashore State Park in California in November 2023. But because of stress injuries he had to stop in Moab, Utah, last year. This summer he started again in Sacramento and walked east to Fallon, Nevada.

He still needs to hike across parts of Nevada and Utah and from Sacramento to the Pacific Ocean to accomplish his goal of walking across America. He walks about 15 to 20 miles a day carrying a 40-pound backpack.

Christner said he stopped at 12 food banks and numerous food pantries and action agencies along the way filming them for a documentary about food insecurity in America. He said he met a lot of people passionate about helping others in need.

He took more than 50,000 photos during the walk and shot more than 3,000 videos. He said one of the challenges is going through all those videos to make the documentary.

“The country is rich with people who are out there helping,” Christner told the students. “I believe people are innately good at their core.”

He said he learned that every food bank and food pantry is unique and has their own ways of trying to help those dealing with food insecurity. He said “it’s joyful” to see how well they collaborate.

“They’re one of the few business models that wants to put themselves out of business,” he said.

Christner also plans to make a documentary about his walk to help make people aware of food insecurity and to raise funds.

Students attending the presentation drew cards to determine how they would eat at the banquet. Those who drew lower socioeconomic class cards sat on the floor and ate rice, beans and water. Those in the middle class sat at tables without tablecloths and ate margherita chicken pasta, caprese quinoa, orange glazed carrots and could select tea, lemonade or water. Those in the high class had starters of Caesar salad, fried onion rings, and fried cheese balls, entrée options of margherita pizza or barbecue wings, fries, root beer or strawberry shakes and brownies.

Carridee Raymundo ’25, Culver Girls Academy GSI president, and Ray (Xinlang) Fan ’25, CMA GSI president, told those in attendance that 1.8 billion people were living in poverty worldwide before the pandemic and another 228 million fell into poverty because of the effects of the pandemic.

They said about 20 percent of the world’s population, those earning more than $9,125 a year, make up the high-income group. About 30 percent, those earning between $2,920 a year and $9,125 a year, are in the middle-income group. About 50 percent, those earning less than $2,920 a year, fall into the low-income group.

After Christner spoke, those at the presentation broke into smaller groups to talk about why hunger is such a big problem and what can be done to help solve it. They talked how little people needed to earn worldwide to be considered high-income and how that here in the United States, $50,000 a year isn’t always enough to get by. They also talked about how living in the Culver “bubble” they don’t see much food scarcity, but they were aware of wasted food in the dining hall and also are aware that there are people living nearby who don’t always have enough to eat.

They also talked about how they don’t think that food insecurity is caused by a lack of food but through a lack of ways to distribute food to those who need it.

“There’s more than enough food,” Albert Lu ’26 said. “We waste so much food in America and other developed countries. That food could have gone for better use elsewhere.”

They also talked about ways to help alleviate food insecurity, such as through community gardens and by donating parts of their salaries after they join the work force or by giving of their time to help solve the problem.

Rebecca Hodges, Ph.D., director of Culver’s Global Studies Institute, said students getting involved to try to create a world where everybody can eat fits into the school message this year of E Pluribus Unum, a Latin expression that means “Out of Many, One.”

“That’s not just about the founding of the United States politically. It’s about being human on the planet,” she said. “There are a lot of people on the planet. We all eat. We all need to eat. And there’s a lot more that we have in common than we have as differences.”