Billy Shore, founder and
CEO of Share Our Strength, explains that No Kid Hungry Campaign “connects kids
in need with nutritious food and teaches their families how to cook healthy,
affordable meals,” making “childhood hunger a national priority.”
Share Our Strength gives collaborative solutions in the form of “community
grants to nonprofit organizations (NGOs), schools, and other eligible
organizations who are involved in the following activities:
-
Increasing access
to afterschool snack and meal programs, or meals in child care settings,
supported through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)
-
Increasing access
to summer meals programs supported through the Summer Food Service Program or
the National School Lunch “Seamless
Summer” Program
-
Educating and
enrolling more eligible families in SNAP/WIC
-
Increasing
participation in the School Breakfast program through alternative models such
as in-classroom breakfast and grab-n-go.
-
Advocacy around
any of the above anti-hunger issues
-
Nutrition
education programs provided by Share our Strength’s Cooking Matters partners.” https://www.nokidhungry.org/solution/working-together
“The No Kid Hungry
campaign works to shine a national spotlight on the crisis of childhood hunger
in America, creating a powerful movement of individuals committed to bold
action. We build partnerships that enlist influential individuals in the cause
and advocate policy changes needed to achieve our goals.” I did not realize
hunger is a national crisis in our obese country but I stand corrected. It
sounds like a wonderful and noble idea; nobody wants to see children starve in
this land of plenty. Nobody wants to see starving children anywhere in the
world.
As a former teacher I know
that some parents have abdicated their parenting job to schools to educate,
supervise, and feed their children three meals a day. It is no longer their
responsibility to provide for their children, it is the government’s job and
the government is happy to step in with more policies, bold action, influential
individuals, and their goals. Seems like a great idea, right? As a parent,
however, I would like to keep government out of my children’s lives as much as
possible and that includes nutrition. Do I need a famous Hollywood government spokesperson
telling me how to feed or raise my children?
The campaign wants to “ensure
food at home, school breakfast, and meals
all year long.” Access, education, and awareness are accomplished through “private
citizens, government officials, nonprofit organizations, business leaders, and
others providing innovative hunger solution in their communities.”
Who caused our nation’s
children to suddenly go hungry? Could it be that the economic policies of the
last 5 years of the current administration have reduced family budgets to a
stretching limit, have caused massive part-time employment and unemployment
with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, high gasoline prices, high
utilities, out-of-control printing of money by the Federal Reserve that has
devalued the purchasing power of dollars causing families to make painful
personal budget choices? Of course, low information voters would never admit
that they have voted themselves into the dire economic conditions that they
must now suffer. Normally, Americans vote with their pocket books, but this
time, they voted for a cult of personality.
I look around and I see a
lot of overweight Americans with their children in tow dining in restaurants,
fast food places, malls, and receiving free meals at school. I see SNAP and EBT
signs everywhere in grocery stores, gas stations, convenience stores, and
pretty much anywhere food can be purchased. I am more of the opinion that the
whole country could stand to eat less - we could be much healthier. I modify
that slightly – there are some skinny college students who eat a lot less, they
are too proud to apply for government welfare, they work part-time jobs to pay
for their food and other necessities.
I am confused because we
have spent trillions of dollars on the war on poverty so far and we have lost
the war; we have over 126 government welfare programs that feed, clothe,
shelter, and medically care for our poor families and many overlap in mission; the
First Lady’s anti childhood obesity campaign has changed the school menus
around the country to healthy choices, prompting kids to throw hundreds of
thousands of meals in the trash because they don’t like the food while others complain
of hunger because the meals do not satiate their growing bodies’ nutritional
needs or their athletic activities.
We used to have charities
to address the needs of those less fortunate but they have been fast replaced
by government stringent regulations with government grants and welfare programs.
My initial suspicion was that this campaign is not about hunger, or donating “$10
to connect hungry children with 100 meals,” in spite of the many national
partners, social media and blogger partners, state and community partners,
national allies, core partners, Let’s Move, Head Start, famous chefs, famous
restaurants, NEA Health Information Network, National Institute of Health’s We
Can! Program, it is about government control of what our children eat and where
they eat and who has ultimate parental rights over our children.
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