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We were homeless.
My mom. My big sister and me. We slept in the car. . . We went to IHOP and we only got one pancake and we shared it. That was our breakfast... When I was tired of sitting in the car, I would talk to my mom. She would always say a prayer so we could have a better life. We should buy kids good food when they are homeless. We should help them out.
-- Jasmine, age 7
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There are six people in our
family.
But only five sit down to dinner. That’s because my mom doesn’t eat. She wants to make sure we have enough food. |
Some children cheer when schools close for winter
storms, but there are hungry children in America right now for whom another snow
day this week meant another day without access to school breakfast or lunch.
Despite criticism some big city mayors have kept schools open on snowy days this
winter so their children would not go without food. These same children suffer
over the weekends. While some schools have food pantries and send children home
on the weekends with backpacks filled with food, it is still far, far from
enough and only a drop in the bucket of need. Schools report students who arrive
hungry on Monday morning or cry when they miss the bus or it’s late because that
means they’ve missed breakfast.
The record 16.1 million children living in poverty,
including over seven million living in extreme poverty, leaves millions of
children suffering from hunger in our nation with the world’s largest GDP. In
2012 more than one in nine children in the United States lived in households
where children were food insecure, meaning they lacked consistent access to
adequate food; more than one in five children — 15.9 million — lived in
households where either children or adults or both were food insecure. In some
families, like Jasmine’s, hunger compounds other crises like homelessness,
making them even worse. In many others hunger is almost hidden—a quiet secret of
parents struggling to recover from the recession and no longer able to stay
afloat. Food pantries have reported that some of the same community members who
were once regular donors helping to fill the shelves are now regular visitors in
need of help themselves.
Black and Hispanic households with children were
more than twice as likely as White households to have food insecure children,
but White households comprised the largest group of households (43 percent) with
food insecure children. In 2010 and 2011, three-quarters of households with food
insecure children had one or more working adults, 80 percent of whom worked
full-time.
Children’s physical health and brain development
depend on access to nutritious food, especially in the earliest years of life.
Hunger and malnutrition have devastating consequences for children. Federal
nutrition programs continue to be a critical support to ensure children’s daily
nutritional needs are met: they put food on children’s plates, help build
healthy minds and bodies, and help lift families out of poverty. A recent study
found that needy children who received food assistance before age five were in
better health as adults. Food programs are particularly crucial for younger
children, as they are more likely to be in poor health, experience developmental
delays, and be food insecure when their families’ food benefits are reduced or
ended. These programs work. Yet they are not reaching every child in
need.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
benefits, which serve over 22 million children — more than one in four children
in America — were cut in the recent farm bill by $8.6 billion over 10 years. An
estimated 850,000 households, including 1.7 million people, will see a reduction
on average of $90 a month in their food assistance. This cut comes on top of the
substantial across-the-board benefit reduction that took effect in November 2013
and affected all SNAP households. These cuts are morally offensive and
economically indefensible, especially when so many non-needy farmers and others
will continue to get agricultural welfare subsidies. SNAP is the only defense
against the wolves of hunger for 1.2 million households with children who had no
cash income other than SNAP in an average month in FY 2011; FY 2012 is expected
to show an increase. It is shameful that Congress continues to treat poor
Americans like second class citizens by cutting supports they desperately
need.
Like SNAP, the school lunch, breakfast, and summer
feeding programs, which provide meals to children in school and during the long
hot summer months, are crucial and effective anti-poverty investments that help
combat child hunger. They also play a vital role in ensuring children are fed
and able to succeed in the classroom. In one study, children who were food
insecure in kindergarten saw a 13 percent drop in their reading and math test
scores by the third grade compared to their food-secure peers. In FY2012, more
than 21 million children received free or reduced-price lunch through the
National School Lunch Program and nearly 11 million children received free and
reduced price breakfast. When school is out, though, it’s a different story.
The long summer break can be the worst time of all
for our young as hunger does not take a summer vacation. The Children’s Defense
Fund’s latest report shows only 10 percent of the number of children who relied
on free or reduced-price lunch during the school year received meals through the
Summer Food Service Program. Despite the fact that it is 100 percent
federally-funded and has the potential to create local jobs for cafeteria
workers, bus drivers, and others, too many states and communities drag their
feet, create mindless bureaucratic hurdles, and make it as difficult as possible
to get resources to serve meals to hungry children during the summer. I have
never understood why and it should be stopped. Click here to see the 10 best and 10 worst states for
child enrollment in Summer Food Service Programs.
It is crucial to start asking about and planning
right now for summer feeding programs in your community to make sure there is no
child hunger crisis in your area this summer. Encourage local congregations,
organizations, community centers, parks and recreation departments, and others
to open their doors and feed hungry children this summer. These entities are
eligible to become summer feeding sponsors and sites. If you have a connection
to a local service or civic program discuss this issue with them and encourage
them to take advantage of the opportunity to help hungry children get food.
Adults and older children can volunteer to help prepare or serve meals at local
sites. Visit the USDA’s website to learn more.
There should be no hungry people—especially no
hungry children—in any community in rich America. Jasmine, Vanessa, and millions
of children like them deserve better.
Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children's
Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to
ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair
Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and
successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and
communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.
Mrs. Edelman's Child Watch Column also
appears each week on The Huffington
Post.
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