As a teacher in a low-income district, I see children who go hungry on a daily basis. I remember, in fact I'll never forget, have a little girl in my classroom begin crying in the middle of class one day. When I went to ask her what was wrong, she told me she was hungry. I asked if she'd eaten breakfast and she said no. She told me she hadn't eaten since her school lunch the day before. I'm not ashamed to admit I began to cry right there with her. In fact, I'm tearing up as I type this. When you're as passionate about children and their future as I am, hearing and seeing things like that just tear your heart in two.
No child deserves to feel that type of hunger. Yet many in America do, especially during the summer months. Many impoverished families in America rely on free or reduced school lunches to feed their children. Once school is out for the summer, many children go hungry. School districts labeled Title I, meaning they service low socioeconomic areas, serve breakfast and lunch at some of their campuses. As part of this summer feeding program, they serve children, from infancy to age 18, no questions asked. They don't even need to be enrolled in that school or district.
In my district, we work very hard to spread this information and let all of our families know which specific schools are part of the feeding program. However, not all districts offer this and families in more remote areas may not have the ability to get their children to the closest feeding center. But you can help.
Foodbuzz, the food blogging community I am so proud to be a featured publisher with, is pairing with Yahoo! and Share Our Strength to eradicate childhood hunger in this country by 2015. To help make this goal a reality, Yahoo! is donating $20,000 in the name of the Foodbuzz community and all the people who change their homepage to Yahoo! To help make a difference, just click this link and follow the directions to make Yahoo! your homepage. To spread the word, you can also post on your facebook page or tweet this information to your followers.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Kelsey