One in eight Americans will be hungry this year. That is too many people going to bed hungry, too many people lying awake with hunger pains.
Many of these people are children. And the memories of their childhood will be filled with that angst.
We have it in our power to help. Tonight.
Feeding America
Blue Jersey Mom's Diary is UP, please go to that excellent diary now.
Its hard for many of us to imagine going to bed hungry, its hard for us to imagine really genuinely not knowing where the next meal is coming from, its hard for us to imagine how horrible that parent must feel, not to be able to answer the cries of a hungry baby, or a starving toddler, or sending a child off to school on an empty stomach and with no lunch bag in hand. Its hard to imagine if one hasn't been there.
Hopefully most of you/us don't know what it feels like but surely some of you/us do.
In America, this America, let no one go to bed hungry.
Here we sit, in central Connecticut...a mom in a working class town, a dad who has to work too much, and two elementary school children (who often think they are "starving" but never really are. When we think about hunger, we think about the schoolchildren first. Hunger knows no bounds and Heaven help us noone deserves to be hungry in this great country, but we are a young family and so we are most moved by hungry children in schools.
And so the stories I remember the most are the ones involving school children.
I remember one story a commenter mentioned on DailyKos...she mentioned an article about a schoolteacher who had noticed every Monday that her class was out of control and she wondered, why, until she figured it out. It turned out that there were several kids in her class that did not eat between Friday's free lunch at school and Monday's free breakfast. So they couldn't concentrate in school until they were properly tanked up again on Tuesday. They couldn't perform in school until their bellies had some food. So some teachers banded together to make weekend food kits of easy to prepare food for those kids. Besides not being hungry on the weekend, those kids will carry that kindness with them all the days of their life.
The comments from that article are heartwrenching:
The issue of hungry children in school has always been a particular concern of mine. While many of the children enrolled in the school at which I taught lived in families where the income would provide for free or reduced lunch, the application process was confusing to many. Students would bring the applications to me, and their parents would sit with me, (or send a note listing income, etc), and I would fill out the form. Many of these children were not behavior "problems", but were nevertheless, hungry.
There were students whose parents did not want anyone to know they had a "qualifying income", so simply sent their children to school without breakfast. Sometimes these children would steal from others, (bullying, etc). Oftentimes, they acted out in class or fell asleep. My only solution, along with several of my colleagues, was to provide granola bars and juice throughout the day, including a snack for the walk home. The students knew that these snacks were out of my own income, and understood that there would be no stickers, candy, or other meaningless "incentives". Soon, children from other classes would stop by. They would know the rule, (one juice and granola bar per "visit"), and reminded others who were tempted to take more.
The behavior issues vanished, (virtually).
Sometimes, people fail to see the simple solution to a problem, and would rather pontificate about culture, poverty, or ethnicity.
and
I teach in an urban area and pack a huge lunch everyday-not for myself-but for my students.
Yes the school is Title 1.
Yes the school provides breakfast and lunch for these kids.
Yes these kids come to school hungry.
Yes these kids eat breakfast and lunch at the school.
But the breakfasts and lunches are not enough to fill the growing boys in the middle school and is not enough to fill the children for whom this is the ONLY food that they receive teach day.
So for some of these kids, I bring in juices, apples and oranges, half a sandwich, crackers, cookies, whatever I have in my pantry.
Honestly-I couldn't believe it eitherbefore I started teaching...I thought kids who lived in poverty were fed through my tax dollars etc
...
I don't know what happened to the War on Poverty...maybe people got greedy, took care of themselves, and stopped really caring about others. Maybe they allowed themselves to put their heads in the sand and assured themselves that "someone" else was taking care of the children of this nation.
and this interesting observation:
Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute and former education columnist for the New York Times, observed that, if raising test scores is our goal, food might be the easy answer ... "There's evidence to suggest that giving every schoolchild a good breakfast will raise test scores more than ending social promotion, increasing accountability, or requiring more testing. It's a fact that iron deficiency anemia, twice as common in low-income children as in better- off children, affects cognitive ability. In experiments in which students got inexpensive vitamin and mineral supplements, reported Rothstein, "test scores rose from that treatment alone." So where are the demands in Congress for an Eat for Success campaign? Plenty of us would march for No Child Left Unfed.
From:
Susan Ohanian, Capitalism, Calculus and Conscience
Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 84, 2003
Here's a similar story from Athens, Georgia, where one in four children live under the poverty line.
And here is some commentary from a similar program in Washington County, Kansas. They list some results that come from simply feeding schoolchildren.
2008 BackSnack expansion
BackSnack began in 2004 with a pilot project serving 30 children at one school. Last year, Harvesters served 650 students at 22 schools. By the end of the 2008-2009 school year, with help from the Hall Family Foundation and other committed supporters, Harvesters will greatly expand the program to provide backpacks to 8,000 children.
Why is Harvesters so committed to this program? Because it makes such a difference. Food does much more than alleviate hunger. Teachers involved with BackSnack report the following:
• 68% see improvements in grades and behavior
• 84% see improvements in attendance
• 71% see improvements in social skills
• 83% see improvements in self-esteem
• 77% see improvements in children’s sense of responsibility
The backpacks are filled with food on Friday and the children bring them back on Monday. What a truly wonderful idea.
Teachers everywhere, do stuff like this all the time.
But kids still fall between the cracks. NOT ON OUR WATCH.
I remember several comments by our wonderful Kossacks who happen to be teachers who found ways to pay for school lunches for needy children on the sly, preserving their dignity (as is so often important for children who can get teased).
Teachers everywhere do this type of thing. Was one of them you? We honor that.
But its not enough, kids slip through. NOT ON OUR WATCH.
According to Share our Strength, 12.6 million children are at risk for hunger in America; 13.4 million children receive Food Stamps. School programs are not the only answer, food stamps are often not enough to feed whole families nutritious food for the month and are vulnerable to budget cuts.
Entire families fall through the cracks. NOT ON OUR WATCH!
It strikes me that for many of us, our happiest childhood memories revolve around food. I remember all those holiday (and ordinary) dinners, going to grandma and grandpas or my aunt and uncles, gathering around the table filled with turkey and ham and mashed potatoes. I remember all the fish the Italian relatives would make on Christmas eve (my favorite meal of the year). I remember when my father would visit me in San Francisco while I was in college and we would have cioppino at Fisherman's Wharf or Hot and Sour Soup in Chinatown. I remember the lumpia of my mother's family. How many of our childhood memories revolve around food and don't we all remember the sense of family and comaradarie which came with it. Food was our family, our family was food...they were truly intertwined. Food was love. For not only was the food there, but conversation and company too.
When you help feed a family, you aren't just giving food. You are giving people a way to sit down and connect. You are giving a child a memory that just could well last a lifetime.
Here is the link for Feeding America and this pagelists some sponsors and provides a place where you can find a local food bank. IT IS CRITICAL to support local food banks.
For every $1 you donate, Feeding America will provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country. If you can't get through tonight (hopefully because the sites are BUSY), then please try again).
No Child Left Unfed, indeed. Let it be On Our Watch.
(and children need well fed parents and other adults in their life too, leave noone behind)
Please visit the other Filling Empty Bowls Diarists this weekend (all times Eastern):
Sunday, February 15, 2009
9 a.m.: blue jersey mom >THIS DIARY IS NOW UP! Please visit.
12 noon: rb137
3 p.m.: Timroff
6 p.m.: Meteor Blades
9 p.m.: srkp23
Revisit previous diaries:
Noweasels FEBI
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse FEB2: US/Afghanistan Food Justice
Hardhat Democrat: People are Starving Now
Boatsie: Unpaving Paradise