I focus on the children. Perhaps that is because as one who has taught kids from grades 7 through 12, I have, even in the suburbs around DC, seen students whose ability to focus on school and learn is limited because they do not regularly get enough to eat.
One part of Feeding America is their Kids Cafe program:
Kids Cafe programs provide free meals and snacks to low-income children through a variety of community locations where children already congregate—such as Boys & Girls Clubs, churches or public schools. In addition to providing meals to kids, all Kids Cafe programs also offer a safe place, where under the supervision of trustworthy staff, a child can get involved in educational, recreational and social activities.
And consider this:
• There are over 1,600 established Kids Cafes in operation.
• Over 12 million children live in food insecure households.
Please keep reading this, my contribution, to this important blogathon effort.
Let's back up a moment. Everyone should know that the federal government helps feed children. There is a National School Lunch Program, which dates back to the Presidency of Harry Truman - hmm, since this is a Democratic political blog it is perhaps noting that if we find a useful federal social program it will have been founded under a Democratic president. The Department of Agriculture website (to which the link takes you) describes the program as
a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day. The program was established under the National School Lunch Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946.
If one follows the link to the fact sheet on the program, one will learn
The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in over 101,000 public and non‐profit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low‐cost or free lunches to more than 30.5 million children each school day in 2008. In 1998, Congress expanded the National School Lunch Program to include children through 18 years of age.
Some children can receive Free and Reduced prices for that school lunch, the eligibility for which is as follows:
Any child at a participating school may purchase a meal through the National School Lunch Program. Children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level are eligible for free meals. Those with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level are eligible for reduced‐price meals, for which students can be charged no more than 40 cents. (For the period July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010, 130 percent of the poverty level is $28,665 for a family of four; 185 percent is $40,793.)
We also learn that
Afterschool snacks are provided to children on the same income eligibility basis as school meals. However, programs that operate in areas where at least 50 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced‐price meals may serve all their snacks for free.
And there are also provisions for free breakfasts, as well as offering food support during the Summer when schools are not open.
It is worth noting that states are not required to participate in such programs. Any of them. And within states individual school systems may not participate. Some schools lack the facilities to provide lunch - I can remember my own elementary school had no kitchen, so that back in 1950s when I was attending the only thing offered through the USDA was a subsidized milk program. In fact, many of my schoolmates actually went home for lunch and then returned to school - that was a very different time, in a community in which poverty was almost unknown.
If you want to see the eligibility criteria for participation in Free and Reduced meals and snacks, you can examine this table, from which let me merely quote the current income levels for a family with 5 members, say 2 adults and three children (for all states except Alaska and Hawai'i, for which the income levels are higher):
The federal family income that establishes poverty level is 25,579
At 130% that rises to 33,527
At 185% that rises to 47,712
Now consider the following. As I told you, participation even in public schools is not mandatory, certainly not for breakfasts and snacks.
Some non-public schools do not participate at all, and remember that an increasing number of children do not attend public school: perhaps 10% of those of school age nationally are not in public school settings.
There are no food services through this program on days schools are not open - for weather, holidays, vacations (except the various summer programs)
There is no provision for dinner.
An increasing number of Americans are having trouble feeding their families.
Let's consider that last point. As I read in this recent Washington Post article,
The nation's economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people -- including almost one child in four -- struggled last year to get enough to eat.
Let me quote two more paragraphs from that article:
The magnitude of the increase in food shortages -- and, in some cases, outright hunger -- identified in the report startled even the nation's leading anti-poverty advocates, who have grown accustomed to longer lines lately at food banks and soup kitchens. The findings also intensify pressure on the White House to fulfill a pledge to stamp out childhood hunger made by President Obama, who called the report "unsettling."
The data show that dependable access to adequate food has especially deteriorated among families with children. In 2008, nearly 17 million children, or 22.5 percent, lived in households in which food at times was scarce -- 4 million children more than the year before. And the number of youngsters who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.
That last sentence should shock us all: And the number of youngsters who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.
Stalin once said that the death of a single individual was a tragedy but that the death of millions was merely a statistic. Thus telling you that 9.6% of the families in Maryland, where I teach, are included among those facing food insecurity may not fully connect with you. Even were I to tell you that in Prince George's County, in whose school system I work, has a rate higher than that after all, officially our school system has a poverty rate of around 8% but an eligibility rate for Free and Reduced lunch more than twice that. But perhaps if I can tell you about children who come to school hungry, or who do not focus in class because of hunger pains it might make a difference. Maybe I could describe one or two of my students...
But I should not need to. If you look around your neighborhood, even in some of the more comfortable suburbs, you will if you are focused enough find people who help make up these statistics. A parent who loses a job still has to wrestle between trying to keep up the mortgage so the family does not lose its home and other things, including too often feeding everyone. Food pantries have not been able to keep up with the increased demand. Not all jurisdictions participate in the food stamp program. Families can really be at nutritional risk, which also increases health risks at the same time as those people become uninsured medically.
Government programs are fine, but right now we will not see an increase in funding for such programs to meet the increasing needs of our people. Have no doubt that any attempt to expand federal programs will meet strong resistance from most Republicans in Congress, and perhaps some of our own Blue Dogs. Besides, the lag time between proposing a new or expanded federal program is simply too long to help those most in need now.
So consider what Feeding America tells us:
For every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 7 meals to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.
On the page describing Kids Network you can read about the origin of the program:
The program traces its origins to Savannah, Georgia in 1989, when two young brothers were discovered late one night in the kitchen of their housing project's community center. In response to this glaring example of child hunger, the Second Harvest Food Bank of Coastal Georgia started the first Kids Cafe. In 1993, Feeding America launched the national Kids Cafe program.
Imagine finding children breaking into a kitchen not in their own house, in a desperate search for food.
Kids Network is only one of the programs through which Feeding America attempts to address the needs of our people.
In recent months I have periodically written on access to health care as a result of my volunteering at medical/dental missions in Appalachian Virginia. One thing there is that those waiting often for hours for service were given snacks and drinks. For some it was the only food they ate during the long hours of attempting to get medical services. They not only lacked access to medical care, they were also limited in their access to food. And yes, there is a direct connection between nutrition and health, and we all know it. Those who are poor are often overweight because it is cheaper to fill an empty stomach with cheap starchy food that provides little in the way of proper nutrition. Or people eat foods filled with high fructose corn syrup as a means of attempting to give themselves enough energy to go on.
I have only occasionally in my six plus decades had to go without food, the longest time for 2 days in my early twenties when I was between jobs in New York. Still, I had extended family to whom I could turn were I not too proud. I was not in an area of heavy unemployment where many were at risk nutritionally as well as financially, and thus could not share with their less fortunate neighbors.
Perhaps you have had occasion to have to limit what you ate for financial reasons. For most of us it might mean eating less meat (which might be healthy if we still get sufficient protein, etc.), skipping dessert, or the like. Been there as well.
But that is not the food insecurity that many are facing right now.
If we can, do we not have an obligation to prevent and/or alleviate the suffering that can result from food insecurity?
A person who gets insufficient food and nutrition lacks the energy to even seek employment, much less sustain it.
A child who gets insufficient food and nutrition will usually not be able to concentrate, to learn.
Do what you can to help. Assist those good people who are already willing to help.
Good people like the ones at Feeding America.
With programs like Kids Care.
Perhaps you do not need help yourself. Not now.
What if things suddenly were to change, for you, for someone you care about.
You would want an organization like Feeding America to be there for you.
Please....help.
Please donate through this link and your contribution will be matched!
Please watch for the last diary in this series, by boatsie.
Go read the previous diaries in this great series, organized by rb137.
Recommend the diaries still live.
Saturday, Nov 21 (all times EST):
11:00a -- blue jersey mom
2:00p -- Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse
5:00p -- buhdydharma
8:00p -- JayinPortland
11:00p -- rb137
Sunday, Nov 22 (all times EST):
11:00a -- noweasels
2:00p -- TheFatLadySings
5:00p -- Timroff
8:00p -- teacherken ( hey, that's this diary
11:00p -- boatsie
Thanks
and Peace.