Recently my son was asked to write a speech on hunger in America.\u00a0 Before he started writing it, we discussed it for a few days every time we were heading somewhere.\u00a0 Kids understand that there are people who do not have enough food.\u00a0 But it becomes much more clear if hunger has a face!\u00a0 This has them asking questions–like why and how and what can they do to help?\u00a0 Kids are great!<\/p>\n
In Nebraska, 1 in 8 people struggle with hunger.\u00a0 According to Feeding America, these are the brutal statistics:<\/p>\n
In 2014:<\/p>\n
Hunger in America.\u00a0 As an RD, I have a basic understanding of who is hungry, why, and what efforts are being made to reduce this.\u00a0 I know that there is not one particular reason why someone is food insecure, and not one specific way to help solve the problem.\u00a0\u00a0 But have I given hunger a face?\u00a0 I see homeless people almost every day going to work.\u00a0 I often wonder if I should offer them a sandwich–or something?\u00a0 Why are they homeless?\u00a0 Do they want help?\u00a0 Is it psychological? Are they scamming?\u00a0 All hard questions.<\/p>\n
I know there are a LOT of efforts in my town to help the hungry.\u00a0 Even in Omaha we have food deserts and families who don’t have food in their homes.\u00a0\u00a0 We have homeless shelters, food pantries, EBT cards, back pack programs, etc…\u00a0 But people still fall between the cracks.\u00a0 So how do we help?\u00a0 Well–I believe it’s one person at a time.\u00a0 The movement of one–so to speak.<\/p>\n
We collaborate with many entities in Douglas and Sarpy Counties to try and reduce hunger.\u00a0 Our nutrition staff works with the\u00a0Food Bank for the Heartland \u2013 Hunger Free Heartland, The Open Door Mission, and many food pantries.\u00a0 \u00a0During the summer, our Master Gardeners work at the Hope Garden project. They spend all summer raising a HUGE garden, then donate all of the harvest to the homeless.\u00a0 We attack the problem from many different aspects–and know they all are making a difference.<\/p>\n
This week there was a news article about a school in town whose students wanted to help their fellow students who didn’t have enough food.\u00a0 So they started their own food pantry. Students get to go through weekly and choose fresh fruits and canned goods and easy meals.\u00a0 It helps those that need, and those that want to help feel like they are helping–even in a small way–even if it’s just a small amount of kids.<\/p>\n
The same son that wrote the speech volunteers at our churches food pantry.\u00a0 He has seen hunger.\u00a0 He knows what it looks like.\u00a0 It’s humbling knowing that there are people who need help–and I am proud that he wants to be part of the solution.\u00a0 He doesn’t wonder what he should do–he does it!\u00a0 Maybe I need to take a lesson from him.\u00a0 If we all did our part–maybe we could decrease hunger.\u00a0 I don’t have to solve the worlds problems–but maybe I can give a person in need a sandwich or donate canned goods and too small coats to our food pantry.\u00a0 It starts with one!<\/p>\n
This was written to encourage thought on my readers part.\u00a0 It is not trying to prove anything.\u00a0 Just something to ponder when you head to the fridge and grumble nothing looks good.\u00a0 Be grateful we have something!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently my son was asked to write a speech on hunger in America.\u00a0 Before he started writing it, we discussed it for a few days every time we were heading somewhere.\u00a0 Kids understand that there are people who do not have enough food.\u00a0 But it becomes much more clear if hunger has a face!\u00a0 This has them asking questions–like why Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,780],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e","category-nutrition-2","cat-42-id","cat-780-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/hunger-facts-slider-4.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12171,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12161\/revisions\/12171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}