Food for thought this summer

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By Amy L. Stewart

I’m starving!

No, that’s not just me complaining because I skipped breakfast. That is the cry of approximately 350,000 kids in Indiana who will spend today hungry, because they depend on school for their next meal, and they lack adequate access to food in the summertime. (To be clear – that is the number that do not have access to summer meal programs; I subtracted those.) According to a recent national survey, 83 percent of educators worry that when school is out, their students do not have enough to eat during the summer months.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that 1 out of 5 American children don’t get the food they need. 1 in 5. That’s a child you know. Hunger puts children at risk for numerous other serious problems. Hunger causes children to be sick more often, to suffer from more fatigue, to recover from illness more slowly and to be hospitalized more. Hungry kids don’t develop, concentrate, learn or score on tests at the same rates as kids with full stomachs. They suffer from more absenteeism, suspensions, aggression and anxiety. Besides being hungry. Just plain hungry. Children and babies. In Indiana. In America. That’s simply not okay.

Let’s do this: Before we swim, bike, boat, play baseball, go on vacation, barbecue, have picnics, watch fireworks, lay out by the pool, savor watermelon and corn on the cob . . . let’s just stop this. Let’s get that out of the way first. Let’s give to an organization like Feeding America (www.feedingamerica.org) or No Kid Hungry (www.nokidhungry.org). Let’s volunteer with our families at a local summer meals program. Let’s share a meal with someone in our community who needs one. After that’s done, then we all can have a great summer.

To find free summer meals for your children in our community, or to volunteer to help provide meals to our neighbors’ kids, go to www.doe.in.gov/nutrition/summer-food-service-program or www.summerservings.org or text “FOOD” to 877-877.


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