Do you realize that almost 1 in 4 American children do not know where their next meal is coming from? Almost 16 million kids have no idea if they’ll get another dish of food.
Yes, this number decreased by 1 million from last year (17 million hungry children according to USDA, ConAgra Foods, partners of Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief organizations. They plan to continue their hunger fight campaign along with the rest of us until hunger is non-existent. Kori Reed, the executive director of ConAgra Foods Foundation said they will continue efforts to alleviate child hunger.
From September to fall has been designated as Hunger Action. So what is ConAgra Foods Foundation doing to help us in our battle against child hunger?
ConAgra Foods continues its campaign by working with Feeding America and Schools Fight Hunger by trying to get more schools and families involved in a food drive. Two components this fall are collecting UPC codes and collecting food items. Throughout the 2011-2012 school year, they can collect an additional 5 million meals!
Encouraging new USDA data regarding food insecurity offers a bit brighter picture. With child hunger numbers slightly slipping compared to last year which reported 17 million children in need, this year we are already down to 16 million. Putting that into perspective though, 16 million children are hungrier than the entire populations of Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles combined. It means it is still a huge ongoing problem even though we are indeed building some momentum to make a difference.
Childhood hunger is such an important issue to ConAgra Foods because even though we have been working on the problems since 1993, childhood hunger is nearly an invisible issue in the US.
When you speak of millions of children throughout the year who don’t know where or when they will get a plate of food, it is a real issue which all must take seriously. ConAgra Foods and the ConAgra Foundation have been working together with so many others to invest in solving this problem.
ConAgra Foundation has invested more than $35 million. The company has donated more than 275 million pounds of food and last year alone provided a million meals a month. Child Hunger Ends Here campaign is building on top of that million meals a month so there can be a continued difference to kids.
We can help stretch food buying dollars both during the school year and more importantly these days when schools are out of session. There is also a donation button. We will do what we can.
