Hungry to Help

Hunger-Free Summer: What do you tell the kids?
Author: Stephanie Childs, ConAgra Foods Foundation

This summer, I had the good fortune to work with Katharine McPhee. She joined the ConAgra Foods Foundation and Feeding America to bring attention to our Hunger-Free Summer initiative.

Throughout the tour, she would regularly explain that she was volunteering at Hunger-Free Summer locations across the nation in order to lend her voice to the efforts to fight hunger and to bring some sunshine into the day for children who rely on summer food programs like those supported by our Hunger-Free Summer grant.

During one interview, a reporter asked her what she tells the kids about why she’s visiting. Katharine’s response? She doesn’t tell them much.

Katharine’s focus was on having fun with the kids and brightening their days. When it came to explaining the issue of child hunger, she was talking to the adults who need to know that there are resources for families in need and facing hunger.

Katharine is right. As we’re finding solutions to end child hunger in America, our work isn’t about telling kids in need that they are in need or to point out that their families struggle to pay the bills and put meals on the table. Our responsibility is to do what we can to provide children with the meals, resources and skills they need to become successful.

Summer is coming to a close, but our work to ensure that children have access to nutritious meals all year isn’t done. In fact, we’re already beginning to plan for next year’s Hunger-Free Summer to make it even more successful.

If you work with a food bank or a children’s summer food program in your community, mark your calendars now. In February 2011, Feeding America will begin its selection process for next year’s Hunger-Free Summer grant recipients.

Working together, we can make sure more kids have a fun-filled Hunger-Free Summer.

Photo Credit: ConAgra Foods Foundation. In the above photo, Katharine McPhee plays with kids who rely on the services provided by the Arkansas Foodbank Network. Arkansas Foodbank Network was one of 23 Hunger-Free Summer grant recipients.

We sent out over 700,000 pounds of food in July…this is another one-month record!

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Author: Stephanie Childs, ConAgra Foods Foundation

The High Plains Food Bank posted the above quote as a status update on Facebook recently.

At first I thought, “Wow! That’s great.” That they’re able to distribute this much food means there are more people getting the help they need.

My very next response was sadness though as I realized that the people getting these services could be friends or neighbors of my family or even possibly my own family. You see, I’m originally from a small town north of Amarillo, Texas, where the High Plains Food Bank is located.

Growing up, my grandmother owned our town’s grocery store, where I helped by bagging groceries, stocking shelves or doing other tasks around the store. I was just young enough to be oblivious to what a customer’s shopping habits meant.

I remember asking my grandma why one of the ladies who came to the store only ever bought cans of cat food. My grandma explained to me that cat food was all the lady could afford to buy.

She couldn’t afford other groceries.

To this day, that memory hurts, and I still wonder whether or not she had any family to help her. What about her church or other resources?

Years later, I now work for the ConAgra Foods Foundation. I have a better understanding of the barriers that stand between an individual and the help they need.

When I was younger, food banks and pantries were not common. Today, even though there are more food banks and pantries, people have to know that they exist and must find the strength to ask for help.

I may have mixed emotions about the High Plains Food Bank’s record-setting month, but I know how important their work is and what it means for the families relying on their services. I may have been too young to help the lady in my grandma’s grocery store, but I am glad to know the High Plains Food Bank is helping ladies like her and countless others.