Sheep Shots: The Hunger

Monday, March 14, 2005

The Hunger

Warning: don't expect any knit content!

Today, we launched a new program.

Would it surprise you to know that there are children right here in the U S of A that eat breakfast and lunch at school, and if there's a holiday, or a weekend, they might not eat at all?

I was not shocked or surprised. After all, in the three years that I taught (as a sub) in an elementary school in a relatively affluent neighborhood in suburban Washington, D.C. (Martinsburg, WV, in fact), I saw them every day.

They were the kids who qualified for "subsidized meals" (euphemism for "free and reduced lunch kids") . About 1/3 of the kids in "my" school fell into that category. Nearly all of them ate both breakfast and lunch at school. In fact, school breakfast was so popular (and so taken for granted) that the vast majority of all the kids (and many of the teachers) ate breakfast there every single day! But I digress.

The hungry kids (the ones who might have had meager, or no, meals at home) were easy to spot! They tended to be sleepy, or cranky, or aggressive. When a snack was offered, they ate theirs fast and looked for more! They ate "meal components" (broccoli, cole slaw, mystery meat) that the other kids shunned. Mondays were the worst since many of them might not have eaten well since lunch on Friday! And days when school was delayed because of bad weather were a nightmare.

In some cases, these kids come from homes where the month lasts longer than the paycheck. In some, the parent(s) has a weekend job and the kids fend for themselves. And some (though they are a tiny minority) really are neglected,

Other food banks in other cities already have a weekend food package program. The concept is that kids who have been identified as "at nutritional risk" are given a backpack, gym bag, or tote bag. Each Friday that container is stuffed with easy-to-prepare, reasonably nutritious food for them to take home. Cereal, shelf-stable milk and juice, canned soup, peanut butter and crackers, things kids can fix for themselves, and that they will enjoy eating are included. Of course it's not a perfect diet! But it certainly beats a soda and a bag of chips, or worse yet, nothing at all.

And so, Backpack Buddies debuted in the Lehigh Valley. It isn't the first program of its kind, and please, may it not be the last as long as the need exists!

// posted by Ann @ 3/14/2005 06:34:00 PM

Comments:

What a wonderful program! The high school where I teach has more than 60% students receiving free and reduced lunches, one of the elementary schools in our district has 90%!

# posted by

Charleen : 11:12 PM

Same here, Carleen. While there are districts with as few as 15% on f/r, the "big city" district is 75% and one school, like yours, has 90% (almost all free) AND about a 90% turnover of students each year. (We can hope it's because they've moved somewhere "better," but we'd be kidding ourselves!)

How can we hope to leave no child behind with stats like that?

# posted by

Ann : 5:49 AM

Ann, you're doing such very important work, and as a mother of a young child (and just a person who gives a damn about the future of civilization) I thank you.

My kid goes to a good daycare in an "affluent" area (although you know I'm nowhere near affluent), and they give breakfast to them every day. There are a lot of single parents there and I think that without that, there would be a whole bunch of kids getting nothing until their pbj (if that) at lunch.

# posted by

Rabbitch : 4:19 AM