It isn't just in China that kids go hungry

"Eat it," mothers love to tell their kids. "Some hungry child is starving in China."

And your point, mothers everywhere, would be...what? If I eat lima beans, some nameless kid in some foreign country will not be hungry anymore? Sorry Mom, that line just does not do it for me.

At Sunday Mass, the missionaries come around with stories about starving people all over the globe, from Ethiopia to Guatemala. The Heifer Project reminds us to spend our Christmas funds on gifts that keep on giving--a cow that can be milked daily, a chicken that supplies eggs, rabbits that produce more rabbits--and always, these gifts go to some country that looks sunny and mountainous and exotic.

But we do not have to go that far to find hungry children.

In the Cedar Rapids Gazette on September 12, "Some kids go hungry here, too" was the editorial. Here in Cedar Rapids, there are students who get one meal a day - the cafeteria lunch. Yeah, that one. My mom stopped volunteering in the grade school lunch room because she couldn't bear to see how much food was getting thrown away every day. I could think of many reasons to avoid being in that cafeteria, Mom, but your reason never would have entered my mind.

It's hard to imagine that some kids are so hungry, they'd eat everything on the tray - at school. Karla Goettel wrote in a an editorial in the September 20 Gazette that one child who was about to be sent home sick said wait, don't make me go home before lunch, or I won't find anything to eat at home.

I've never lived in a neighborhood where kids aren't being fed, where cupboards are empty, and parents don't have money to buy groceries. I don't see these kids, but they exist, and now United Way and HACAP (Hawkeye Area Community Action Program) are raising money to help feed the hungry at our schools.

Food Banks used to cover the needs of the hungry, but they haven't been able to meet the demand lately. Instead of asking for donations of food, they're asking for money. Karla Goettel's editorial said each dollar you donate will buy 12 dollars worth of groceries from whatever source they have.

"We are raising money instead of holding a food drive," she wrote, "because HACAP can purchase food through Feeding America and stretch $1 in donations to $12 in food purchases. We also have a goal of providing only nutritious, child-friendly food. Each backpack contains 3,200 carefully selected calories, enough to sustain a young child for two days."

Operation Back Pack has been launched this month. I would like to get Kennedy High School involved. We could have a donation jar in the office, the library, maybe even in home rooms, for students to donate quarters and dollar bills they might otherwise spend at a vending machine. For about $5.50 per week per child, or $220 a year, a student can be fed nutritious food instead of going to school hungry, distracted and unable to focus. "Hungry children make poor students," Karla wrote, "and poor students make poor citizens." How badly do we need a can of soda after school or a candy bar? Think about the kid who would eat the school's greasy fish sticks and no-longer-green beans and actually wish for more. Seeing anyone that hungry would make me think twice about buying whatever granola bar or root beer might be tempting me.

School nurses and teachers will identify food-insecure children"-- students who seem to be underfed. They are not always the same kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. Volunteers are needed for packing and distribution of the food that will be sent home in backpacks with the students.

I hope Kennedy students will do their part and bring in spare change. If 220 students brought in a dollar a week, one kid would be spared going hungry all year at school. As John F. Kennedy himself said, much is expected from those who have been given much. Most of us are well fed, way too many of us are obese, and we can do more to help others who have been given less in life.

For the good our community, Karla wrote, please donate generously. Contact HACAP at P.O. Box 490, Hiawatha, IA 52333.

Kennedy students have a history of community involvement. If only I had not been home sick all five days last week, Monday through Friday, I would have met with Mr. Benedict to see if his American Government class is already at work on Operation Backpack.

More on hunger in America: www.freedomfromhunger.org/


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Excerpts from the Gazette:

http://thegazette.com/2012/09/12/some-kids-go-hungry-here-too/

No loving parent or caring adult wants to see a child go hungry, without enough healthy food needed for proper physical and mental development. Sadly, it happens far too often on our planet, especially in Third World countries. But how often are children undernourished here in America, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa?

Apparently, more often than you might suspect. Representatives of United Way of East Central Iowa and the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program told us that about 1 in 4 Cedar Rapids kids in grades K-6 are “food insecure” — that is, they miss a meal at least once every five days and aren’t getting enough healthy food overall. These organizations also ask: If the only meals children eat each day are at school, what do these children do when there is no school?” such as on weekends.

It’s a “quiet crisis, and it shouldn’t be,” Karla Goettel of United Way told us Tuesday.

and

http://thegazette.com/2012/09/20/feeding-children-helps-nourish-citizens/

As a community volunteer who was very active in flood recovery, I was invited to join the United Way’s Hunger-Free Network. This consortium of food-aid agencies recognized last spring that the Back Pack Program run by HACAP — Hawkeye Area Community Action Program Inc. — needed additional funding.

I am excited to be a part of the team working to ensure that all of Cedar Rapids Community Schools’ elementary school children have access to sufficient and nutritious food on weekends and during school vacations. Other team members include Amanda Pieper, director of HACAP’s Food Reservoir, and Greg Goodell, coordinator of the Back Pack Program.

Our goal is to raise more than $100,000 to expand and sustain the program. It is available in only six of our 21 elementary schools. We are seeing rising numbers of requests in these schools. Taylor’s requests increased from 25 back packs last year to 50 this year. The participating children’s families must meet federal poverty guidelines.

We are raising money instead of holding a food drive because HACAP can purchase food through Feeding America and stretch $1 in donations to $12 in food purchases. We also have a goal of providing only nutritious, child-friendly food. Each pack back contains 3,200 carefully selected calories, enough to sustain a young child for two days.

We thank The Gazette for its support in the Sept. 12 editorial. Now I call upon all corporations, organizations and individuals in the community to make this happen. Could your church take a special offering to help? How about your office, book club, bridge club, service organization? A family might decide to support one child for a school year ($220.)

Studies have shown that proper nutrition is critical to a child’s brain development. Hungry children make poor students and poor students make poor citizens.

Former Feeding America President Vicky Escarra has said that more children are going hungry now. For the good of our children and the wellness of our community, please donate generously. Contact HACAP at P.O. Box 490, Hiawatha, IA 52233. All contributions are tax deductible.

Karla Goettel is a wife, mother, friend, singer, teacher and community volunteer. Comments: goettel@mchsi.com