Executive Summary
Childhood hunger has been a prominent struggle for many areas of the United States for decades. According to the No Kid Hungry campaign more than 13 million children in the United States are currently living in food insecure homes (World Hunger Facts). This number has got to change. Food insecurity makes children more focused on where their next meal comes from instead of focusing on their education. I am proposing to decrease childhood hunger in my local area, starting with my high school I attended. The idea arose from having many years of volunteer experience with the McBackpack program based in the next school district over from mine. The McBackpack program makes food bags for individual students or their family and ensures they will have something to eat for the weekend. Eventually a similar program started up in my district called the KidsPak which does what the McBackpack does. The concern that I have is when I was in high school I never heard of the program, and it was not well advertised to the student body. This is not the big problem though. There are resources for kids on the weekends, but what about during the school week? Kids can be eligible for free/reduced breakfast and lunch. But after they eat lunch, they could be potentially not eating from 12pm-7am. That is nineteen hours of hunger. So, my proposal is to implement food pantries in my school district, starting with my school of Loveland High School. Over one-third of Loveland high school is eligible for free or reduced lunch (Area Vibes). This means that over 500 kids at just this one school are at high risk for hunger. I believe if you can increase the awareness and accessibility while creating a safe environment for them it will decrease childhood hunger rates immensely. Childhood hunger rates in Larimer County continue to increase. One in three children in Larimer Country are at risk for hunger (Food Bank). Food pantry and meal programs serve 48 million people annually (DiBlasio). There are resources available, but they are not reaching the people who need them most, children.
I am going to help eliminate this gap of hunger, with a simple, low cost solution. Implementing a food pantry at Loveland High School will create access to food that kids would not normally have access to during the weekdays. This will help alleviate the hunger stress from after school until breakfast served at the school each day. Then I want to also advertise an organization that I found called KidsPak which makes food bags for individuals and families every week. They pass them out on Friday afternoons, so the family impacted will have food for the weekend. The combination of opening my very low-cost food pantry and implementing more of KidsPak at Loveland High School will create the perfect balance to reduce the amount of hunger rates at this school.
Introduction
Everyone has something they are struggling with. Whether it is something small or something as crucial as hunger. What if we could eliminate someone’s struggle? Would or could it change the direction of their whole life? That is something I cannot help but try to do. If we can improve a child’s life by simply filling voids in hunger during the week, we can change their life. They will be able to focus on their education, that is ultimately the goal of most children, to simply graduate high school. 1 in 6 children worry about where their next meal will come from (Feeding America). We need to be able to reduce this number immensely.
By starting a food pantry accessible to all students, this will help the void in hunger gaps within the community. Also, by advertising and spreading the word about the programs will make the environment around hunger, a safe one for anyone to access so they will not be pressured by their peers. Every step towards change to no hunger is huge. We can take many steps by implementing this program.
Creating a Food Pantry
My plan is pretty simple, and it will not take many outside resources to start. To start I want to put in place a small food pantry in an unused room or closet at Loveland High School. Then I would fill it with donations from food drives that we could have through the school. After creating the pantry, it is important to have a way to reach out to the students of hours, how they can get food etc. Then I would designate a few staff members to regulate the pantry. Creating a food pantry will help relief the hunger burden from Monday through Friday from afterschool until the student can have access to breakfast at the school.
Health and Mental Problems of Hungry Kids
Not only do kids have mental stress of figuring how they will get a meal or providing money for their family, kids who are hungry are prone to many more health problems, then normal children. According to a Future of Children report, “Even when we control for the effects of other factors correlated with poverty, these children are more likely than others to face a host of health problems, including but not limited to anemia, lower nutrient intake, cognitive problems… (Gunderson).” These are only a few problems that ensue when children go hungry. The first thing other than health that goes down the tubes, is education. How is anyone supposed to get good grades and focus on school, when they have greater responsibilities. The children are constantly in survival mode.
There are other many aspects that contribute to mental and physical stress of children who are hungry. Many children feel ashamed and embarrassed if they have to ask for help, or to ask for food. According to the American Psychological Association, “Severe hunger is associated with anxiety and depression among children. Food insecure children perform worse on academic achievement tests and learn less during the school year” (American Psychological Association). It is extremely important that we can take the burden and stress of these kids by providing food if they need. Than they can focus more on their academics and less on where they are getting their next meal. Also reducing the amount of hungry kids can reduce health, mental, and emotional stresses and problems, for now and the future.
National Childhood Hunger
At the national scope of hunger, there are millions of people affected by this epidemic even there are many programs in place for those in need. Is it because they are unaccessible or unaware of the many resources available to them? That is the biggest question currently. In the United States alone 1 in 8 Americans struggle with hunger daily. 1 in 6 are children. That is over forty-eight million people, and over sixteen million children (Feeding America). These numbers scare me, and they should scare you. You probably see at least fifty hungry adults and children every day and you may not even realize it. According to the No Kid Hungry campaign, “In 2016, the federal poverty level was $24,300 for a family of four. (No Kid Hungry)” This is a very small and unrealistic amount to survive on. Unfortunately, more than 13% of the United States falls under the federal poverty line. That is over 40 million people. This is an unreal amount of people that are trying to survive everyday. So, think of it this way… what if we could get all these 40 million people to focus more on jobs, improving society etc. instead of having to worry about where they are going to even a tiny bit of food we could make the world a much more productive place.
The main difference between the National hunger problem versus at the local level is the number of accessible programs for the public to use, and hopefully get above the federal poverty line for good. Some programs that are in place are S.N.A.P, No Kid Hungry, Feeding America, and Federal Nutrition Programs. These programs all have an integral role in aiding those in need. Sometimes because of the scale of the programs, not everyone who qualifies for the program use it to its full advantage. It is hard to be sure that all the programs are being implemented correctly too. But all of these programs play important role in reducing hunger throughout the United States. So, through more education to our communities, and implementing more areas where people can access food will be very important in the future.
Colorado and Larimer County Hunger
Colorado is on the map for being one of the healthiest and best states to live in. Everywhere in the world has some type of hunger problem, and Colorado has just as many problems unfortunately. We have a better standing than the national average which is very promising, but we still have a lot to do. 1 in 7 Coloradoans struggle with hunger, and 1 in 6 kids do not know where their next meal will come from (Childhood Hunger Denver). With the rising cost of living both in Colorado and Larimer County, poverty and hunger are rising at a very alarming rate. Colorado is the third fastest growing state for childhood hunger in the United States (Childhood Hunger Denver). The cost of living in Colorado is about a third higher than the U.S average. This means that the average person in Colorado will have to spend that much more on housing, groceries, and utilities etc. Which those people that are in the level of poverty already, are going to keep getting deeper into the poverty cycle because everything keeps going up in price.
Figure 1 This figure gives great visuals of how bad the hinger problem in Colorado is, and how many of those impacted ends up being children.
(Childhood Hunger Denver)
Most people would assume since Fort Collins and Loveland are thriving communities, that we would not have a lot of hunger problems. But that is completely opposite. Our rates in Larimer County are much worse than the national average. About 1 in 4 or over 40,000 people in Larimer Country are hungry. The sad part is about 1 in 3 children in Larimer County are food insecure. According to the Larimer Country Food Bank, “To further plan for our future, we also examined county population growth projections. Based on our analysis, we project that we will need to provide enough food for 12.2 million meals each year by 2035 (a 65% increase over 2015) (Food Bank of Larimer County).”
There are many programs that are available at the state and county levels. Some include Larimer County Food Bank, Hunger Free Colorado, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. All of these programs are available to those in need, and other than the food bank may not be very well known. With more education and awareness, it will help bring more people out of poverty.
Loveland Colorado Hunger-
Currently in Loveland, Colorado there is published date from the 2015-2016 school year. I was really surprised with the high number of food insecure kids at my high school. I would have never guessed it would have been that high. 1 in 3 children are hungry at Loveland High School so alone there is over 500 students that are food insecure. This is just insane to think about. Over 500 students may not be living up to their full potential education level because they are too worried about where their next meal will come from. If creating a food pantry that starts out being able to serve even half of these students, we will make a large dent on education, and the well-being of these children. There are some programs at the local level that help with childhood hunger as well, but they are not easily identify if kids need the help. That is why it is important to create a safe environment, so kids can ask those questions. This will allow them to get the help they need, so they can focus more on their academics.
Figure 2- This figure shows the amount of impact one local county food bank has on a community. If we can have essentially mini food banks set up in the schools, it will make a large difference in solving hunger.
(Larimer County Food Bank)
Cost of Project
Advertisement Supplies (Flyers, publish in newspaper, supplies for running food drives)- $200
Room in School- Free
Food from Donations- $0
Total: Approximately $200 if fulfilled by donations
Conclusion-
Creating a food pantry at Loveland High School not only is very necessary for the health and wellness of students, but the benefit of the program far exceed the monetary cost of the program. If we can spread the awareness of hunger in Larimer County, starting with our local schools, it will make a huge impact. Since Colorado is seeing a rapid increase in childhood hunger, it is important that we start address the problem now before it gets too far out of reach. Creating a food pantry allows students to have a safe environment that they can get food if they need to without feel pressure from their peers. This solution also fills in the gaps during the school week that no other programs are filling. I firmly believe if we can team up with KidsPak and implement these food pantries we will reduce hunger dramatically in our communities.
After evaluating all my findings from the national level to specifically Loveland High School, I have found that implementing a food pantry is absoulutly necessary and feasible to have in all schools. The economic factor is very minimal for the amount of impact that there will be, and you can even reduce the cost by asking for donations from the community. Then the social factor from my finding is there is no question. It is very clear that hunger is a huge problem in the United States, especially for children. I want to ensure kids can focus on their school work, and not finding food. If we do not help solve this problem now, the hunger problem will get out of hand. One step at a time will make the biggest impact.