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Fighting hunger requires a community commitment

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Fighting hunger requires a community commitment

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Hunger is often described in terms of "food security," defined by the Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program within the United States Department of Agriculture as "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life."

Statistics from the 2016 Hunger Atlas, published by the University of Missouri's Interdisciplinary Center for Food Security, paint a bleak landscape. They show Missouri ranks among the top 10 states with the highest percentage of households classified as food insecure or having very low food security. Almost half a million Missourians experience hunger at some point over the calendar year, the report found. We have to do better.

Hunger's impact on families and communities can be enormous, including economic, social, physical and psychological consequences. Income loss, work absenteeism, higher demand for public benefits and social services, and increased health care expenditures can soon follow in hunger's wake.

And, according to University of Missouri findings, hunger has also been found to have a strong correlation with lower educational achievement, unemployment and impaired work performance. For children, food insecurity and hunger are often predictors of chronic illness, low birth weight, lower school performance and developmental problems.

It is incumbent upon all of us to step up and improve this picture. The communities and families we serve depend on us to make nourishing, healthy food accessible - a critical component that society needs to thrive.

The concept of giving has long been part of the fabric of the St. Louis community, particularly when it comes to feeding the hungry. We see this in the commitment of the great people we work with at Operation Food Search, who will tell you that one in every six individuals lives in poverty and struggles with hunger in the greater St. Louis region, including more than 172,000 children.

We are working with Operation Food Search this summer to address that need as part of their "Shop Out Hunger campaign." On Saturday, their volunteers will be at every metro area Schnucks and other regional grocery chains, including Dierbergs Markets and Straub's, distributing a shopping "wish list" to customers as they enter the store. Food collected from the community will help fill Operation Food Search pantries at a time when many children who rely on school meals as their primary nutrition are most vulnerable: Nearly 1 in 4 local children don't know where they will get their next meal.

We also have great partners in the Fair Food Network and the Mid-America Regional Council, who are supporting our June launch of Double Up Food Bucks at our Missouri locations, which allows our Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/Electronic Benefit Transfer card customers to receive free produce at Schnucks as a reward for purchasing local produce.

We see this new initiative as a three-way win for our community: Local families are able to bring home and eat more healthy foods, local farmers are able to sell more of their produce and the local economy benefits from more money staying in the area.

We hope others in the St. Louis area are making similar plans to meet the needs of our region's hungry not only this summer, but in the long term. Food security is a real issue that deserves the attention of all of us in the grocery industry as well as others who support the well-being of our communities.
Todd Schnuck is chairman and CEO of Schnuck Markets.

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Fighting hunger requires a community commitment

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Hunger is often described in terms of "food security," defined by the Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program within the United States Department of Agriculture as "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life."

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Hunger and the heartland — needs multiply during summer months

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Hunger and the heartland — needs multiply during summer months

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Summer conjures images of sun-filled vacation days, less hectic schedules and plenty of time for picnics and family barbecues.

Except if putting food on the table is a problem. For large swaths of Kansas and Missouri, it is.

Kansas and Missouri ranked in the bottom 10 states in the country in 2016, according to a report on feeding hungry children during the summer. Families that have trouble providing enough food for their children during the school year struggle even more in the summer months.

Hunger rates are higher, there is less philanthropic giving and when school ends, so do the free and reduced-price lunches many children rely on the rest of the year.

Extra food costs can increase a family's budget by more than $300 a month in June, July and August, according to Harvesters - The Community Food Network, which serves a 26-county region. In fact, the summer equivalent of the National School Lunch Program serves less than 20 percent of those same students during the summer months.

Many portions of rural America, including parts of Kansas and Missouri, have hunger rates equal to or even higher than urban centers. Rural communities often have fewer pantries and more resistance to accepting help, Harvesters reports.

Even in the so-called "breadbasket of the nation," the needs are urgent, and too often children simply go without.

Missouri's Bootheel faces one of the steepest challenges in combating hunger, according to Map the Meal Gap, an annual study. Pemiscot County has one of the highest food insecurity rates - 24.6 percent - in either Missouri or Kansas.

For comparison, Jackson County had a 17.9 percent food insecurity rate. Wyandotte County stood at 16.7 percent. St. Louis County, at 25.7 percent, is struggling mightily.

Food insecurity refers to how the U.S. Department of Agriculture measures hunger, tracking the trouble a family has in providing enough nutrition for all members when balanced against other household bills.

Food insecurity is more prevalent across Missouri, which has higher poverty rates and more people. Kansas fares better except for the southeast part of the state.

To help the counties they serve, Harvesters has launched multiple summer campaigns. The Our Community CAN food drive is held in July. And Step Up to the Plate is in August. Summer BackSnack and Kids Cafe, which distributes meals at parks, swimming pools, libraries and community centers, also help.

But the needs remain great. Donations, volunteers and a broader understanding of hunger's pervasiveness are essential.

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Editorial: Hunger and the heartland - needs multiply during summer months

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Summer conjures images of sun-filled vacation days, less hectic schedules and plenty of time for picnics and family barbecues. Except if putting food on the table is a problem. For large swaths of Kansas and Missouri, it is.

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Study: 1 In 4 Missouri Children Struggle With Hunger

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Study: 1 In 4 Missouri Children Struggle With Hunger

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ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) - A new study on childhood hunger finds some shocking numbers in the St. Louis area.

Nearly one in four children in Missouri is impacted by hunger according to a new report by Feeding America and the Missouri Food Bank Association.

Spokesman Scott Baker says Franklin, Jefferson, St. Louis City, Ste. Genevieve, and Washington counties have about a 25 percent childhood hunger rate. While in St. Charles County 20 percent of school children struggle with hunger.

"This study paints a pretty ugly picture for Missouri and even the St. Louis area," said Baker. "Hunger is real in our region."

Across the river, St. Clair and Madison counties in Illinois have a Hunger rate between 23 and 24 percent.
Copyright KMOX Radio

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Study: 1 In 4 Missouri Children Struggle With Hunger

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ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) - A new study on childhood hunger finds some shocking numbers in the St. Louis area. Nearly one in four children in Missouri is impacted by hunger according to a new report by Feeding America and the Missouri Food Bank Association. Spokesman Scott Baker says Franklin, Jefferson, St.

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War driving up acute food insecurity on a vast scale, report finds, with Yemen, South Sudan and Syria worst affected

The number of hungry people living in conflict zones is rising, with eight countries recording crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity in at least a quarter of their people, food agencies warned the UN security council on Monday.

In Yemen, 17 million people, or 60% of the population, are facing acute food insecurity, while in South Sudan, the figure is 4.8 million or 45% of its people. The other countries ranked as having the highest proportions of food insecure people were Syria, Lebanon, Central African Republic, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Somalia, according to a report by the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Separately, there was a dramatic rise in the numbers reporting acute hunger in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 7.7 million people are now at crisis levels, up from 5.9 million six months ago; Afghanistan, where figures for those encountering acute hunger have increased over the same period, from 4.3 million to 7.6 million; and Sudan, where 3.8 million people are in food crisis, compared with 3.5 million half a year earlier.

Somalia was the only country of the 16 analysed where food security had improved.

Francis Mwanza, head of the WFP office in London, said: "For the World Food Programme, the price of conflict is becoming too high. Eighty per cent of WFP expenditure occurs in conflict zones.

"The fear is if we continue having no access in a number of countries, including Yemen, we may have famine conditions in some areas. If we want to reach zero hunger, ending conflict is a major step in reaching that goal."

In 2016, the number of hungry people in the world increased for the first time since the turn of the century, to 815 million people, with more than half of them - 489 million - in conflict zones. The intensification of conflict was a key driver of the surge in hunger levels, after decades of decline.

Famine was declared in South Sudan last February, with alerts of a high risk of famine in Somalia, Yemen and south-eastern Nigeria in 2017.

The report warned conflict threatened all four of what it described as the "pillars of food stability" - availability, access, utilisation and stability - in "many interlinked" ways. And it said that food insecurity in itself exacerbates tensions and risk of conflict.
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'Price of conflict is too high': hunger at crisis levels in eight countries

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War driving up acute food insecurity on a vast scale, report finds, with Yemen, South Sudan and Syria worst affected The number of hungry people living in conflict zones is rising, with eight countries recording crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity in at least a quarter of their people, food agencies warned the UN security council on Monday.

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Report shows more Missourians experiencing hunger, biggest increase in country

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Report shows more Missourians experiencing hunger, biggest increase in country

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The percentage of households experiencing hunger in Missouri has more than doubled in the last decade, the highest increase in the country, according to a report released Wednesday by the University of Missouri.

The 2016 Missouri Hunger Atlas shows that 8 percent of households - or about half a million Missourians - went hungry at some point during the last year. An additional nearly half a million are "food insecure," meaning they worry about not being able to put enough food on the table. They avoid hunger by eating a less nutritious diet and relying on assistance programs.

"Missouri households are the hungriest they have been in decades," said Sandy Rikoon, director of the MU Interdisciplinary Center for Food Insecurity and co-author of the report.

In total, nearly 17 percent of Missouri households were food insecure last year, compared with 14 percent nationwide, placing it among the top 10 worst states.

The highest levels of food insecurity are seen among persistent high-poverty areas in southern Missouri and in St. Louis, where it's estimated that nearly 26 percent struggle, the report found. However, areas in northern Missouri are experiencing increasing levels of poverty and people in need of food.

The economic and social costs of not having enough to eat are high. Studies of children show that food insecurity and hunger are big predictors of chronic illness, lower school performance and developmental problems.

"One in five children in Missouri live in food insecure households," said MU doctoral student Darren Chapman. "We know these kids are much more likely to face health issues, miss school and have difficulty concentrating when they are in class."

Adults face income loss, missed days at work, increased health costs and higher demand for public benefits and social services. The state spent well over $1.4 billion in 2012 on food stamp programs and reimbursement to schools to provide free and reduced-price meals, according to the report.

However, that amount does not include the administrative costs of operating the programs or private contributions. While food banks contribute more than 90 million pounds of food a year to pantries and other facilities, hundreds of faith-based and civic groups and other organizations also donate.

While assistance programs are critical in the daily struggles of hundreds of thousands of Missourians to provide enough nutrition for them or their families, they are not solutions to reversing worsening trends, the report says.

Rikoon suggests the first step in alleviating hunger is to raise the income of the poor through efforts such as higher wages, housing assistance and Social Security payments for the elderly and disabled.

"If a family has a working member, and this income barely covers rent, utilities, health care, transportation and other essentials; food is often the last expense to be covered," Rikoon said. "We see lots of working households at food pantries. The same for the elderly whose Social Security checks disappear before they can get to the grocery store.

"It's not people making poor decisions, it's people making hard decisions and facing trade-offs between medicine and meat or between rent and red beans."

Judy Berkowitz, director of the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry in Creve Coeur, said the pantry sometimes lacked items such as milk, yogurt and eggs for families.

"If we have to give a little bit less for families during certain weeks because our food supply is low, we will do that to make sure everyone goes home with food," she said.

When the food pantry opened 25 years ago, it served 40 families. Last year, it served 16,758 people, most of them in St. Louis County, she said. More than 41 percent were children, and 19 percent were older adults. They include people who have used up their savings after losing jobs, are struggling with medical bills or are sick and can't work.

"It's important not to assume who comes to a food pantry," Berkowitz said. "It could be your neighbor."

She said food pantries expected to see an increasing need because of changes in the food stamp program that went into affect April 1. Able-bodied adults with no dependents can no longer receive the assistance.

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university of missouri interdisciplinary center for food security

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Report shows more Missourians experiencing hunger, biggest increase in country

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The percentage of households experiencing hunger in Missouri has more than doubled in the last decade, the highest increase in the country, according to a report released Wednesday by the University of Missouri. The 2016 Missouri Hunger Atlas shows that 8 percent of households - or about half a million Missourians - went hungry at some point during the last year.

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Tianna Gaines Turner can't remember the last time she went to bed without worrying about how she was going to feed her three children.

She can't remember the last time she woke up and wasn't worried about how she and her husband would make enough in their part-time jobs to buy groceries and pay utilities on their apartment in a working-class section of Philadelphia.

And she can't remember the last time she felt confident she and her husband wouldn't have to skip meals so their children could eat.

Twenty-eight hundred miles away in a middle-class section of Van Nuys, Calif., similar worries press on Nikki Maxwell and her husband. The two lost their jobs during the recession and now work part time making half their former income.

They face a daily struggle to feed their three children, Maxwell says. She remembers the first time she had to turn to a food pantry for help because she had no other options.

Nikki Maxwell prepares a dinner of vegetable soup and rice with her children: Morgan, 12, left, and Erin, 14, in their Chatsworth home. (Photo: Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY)

"I remember feeling really hopeless," Maxwell says. "I was depressed. I didn't know what to do. I was drowning under the weight of it."

The recession is officially over, but not for millions of working poor, such as Gaines Turner and Maxwell, who do not always have enough money to buy food for the family, according to a new report by Feeding America, a hunger-relief charity.

The report, based on 2012 federal survey data on 44,000 households, says 49 million Americans are "food insecure" - people who sometimes eat less, go hungry or eat less nutritious meals because they can't afford to eat better. Almost a third of them are children.

The report, called "Map the Meal Gap," found:

* In 324 counties, mostly in the South, one in five residents are food insecure. Nationally, the figure is one in seven people. Those rates haven't changed since Feeding America began issuing the annual report in 2011, when 318 counties had high food insecurity rates.

* Families say they needed on average an additional $15.82 per person per week in 2012 to buy enough groceries, up from $14.35 in 2011.

* More counties with a high number of people who are food insecure are seeing food costs go up. The report says 23 counties with high rates of people at risk of hunger also had high food costs. In those counties, the average meal costs $3 or more, higher than the national average of $2.74. In 2011, just eight counties had high food insecurity rates and high meal costs.
REPORT: Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap 2014
"Despite the end of the Great Recession, food insecurity rates are high," says Craig Gundersen, an economist and executive director of the National Soybean Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, who studies hunger and compiled the research in the Feeding America report.

Poverty, which contributes to hunger, has remained stubbornly high, he says. The poverty rate - defined by the federal government as annual income of $23,550 for a family of four - is 15%.

"This shows tens of millions of Americans are still struggling," he says.

Nikki and Bill Maxwell with their children: Logan, 8, left, Morgan, 12, center, and Erin, 14 outside their Chatsworth, Calif., home. (Photo: Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY)

Those most at risk of empty refrigerators and growling tummies are the 10 million people who make up the working poor, says Mariana Chilton, a public health professor at Drexel University School of Public Health and the director of the school's Center for Hunger-Free Communities.

She says reductions in government programs such as food stamps coupled with rising costs of food, housing and utilities force poor families to choose between buying food and paying bills.

"This is a massive public health crisis, and it is a silent crisis," she says.

In November, Congress reduced food stamp benefits to 47 million people. On average, a family of four receiving $668 a month saw that allotment drop by $36.

Preliminary data show that the cuts are affecting families, Chilton says. Children's HealthWatch, a network of doctors and public health researchers who collect data on children up to 4 years old, says 29% of the households they track were at risk of hunger last year, compared with 25% the year before.

The number of families receiving food stamps dropped from almost 48 million people in January of last year to 46.5 million in January this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program.

That's a sign that the economy is recovering, says Robert Doar, a poverty studies fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market research group. He was commissioner of New York City's Human Resources Administration under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

However, he says, the recovery is still weak and leaving many families behind.

He cautions that food insecurity is not a measure of hunger; it is a measure of a person's financial circumstances and their perception of how much food they can afford to buy.

"It makes it more likely that (the term) can be used to make the problem appear worse," he says, but as a financial measure it shows "the extent to which the recovery is painfully slow."

Gaines Turner and her family live in Philadelphia, one of the counties with high rates of food insecurity at 22%. She says she can't buy enough healthful food on her family's income and food stamps. Her kids are among the almost 21 million children in families who get food stamps.

She makes $10.88 an hour as a seasonal administrator at a Philadelphia recreation center. She was unemployed during the winter. Her husband, Marcus, works at a supermarket deli part time, making $8.50 an hour. They qualify for federal housing assistance that drops their rent to $30 a month. In the past two years, their food stamp allotment has gone up and down from a high of almost $800 to a low of $163, depending on their income.

"You rob PECO to go to Pathmark," she says, referring to the power company and supermarket. "We're working low-wage jobs, so you are living paycheck to paycheck and you don't know where the money is going to come from."

She says they struggle to pay utility costs that top $400 a month. They've bounced from cheap motels to apartments as they struggle to find safe, affordable places to live that are not crime-ridden or so rodent- or mold-infested that they worsen her children's asthma.

Her children, a 9-year-old boy and 6-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, have epilepsy and are on daily medication. She has epilepsy, asthma and high blood pressure, which means they are all on a costly gluten-free diet. On their income, she says, buying fresh fruits, vegetables, milk and meat is difficult.

Almost every day, she gets on a bus and treks to buy whatever is on sale. She says she'll go to five markets to get what the average person buys in one.

By the end of the month, things get scarce, she says.

She calls friends for help, visits her local food pantry and, when all else fails, she and her husband don't eat so they can leave the food they have for their children.

"The saddest thing is when my oldest son would say, 'Mommy, you can eat my food,' " she says. "I don't want my kids hurt by this."

Gaines Turner, 35, has chronicled her family's odyssey, which includes two periods of homelessness, in more than 2,000 photographs for an advocacy and research project run by Drexel University called Witnesses to Hunger.

Maxwell, 44, her husband and three children have had a similar experience. They weren't always poor. Maxwell's family was solidly middle-class. She and her husband graduated from college and had good jobs. She wrote grant applications for non-profit organizations and he wrote text for video games. But they lost their jobs and then their home in the recession. They were homeless for six months in 2012, bouncing around from relative to friend.

The worst thing, she says, was not knowing when they would have the money to feed their children. They ran through their savings and 401(k)s. Her husband skipped meals.

Nikki and Bill Maxwell with their children: Logan, 8, Erin, 14, center, and Morgan, 12, eat dinner. (Photo: Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY)

More than a year ago, they found part-time jobs with a social service agency that helps Native Americans, but they make less than they used to and too much to qualify for food stamps or other government benefits. So they still struggle to feed their children, who are 8, 12 and 14.

Monthly visits to the food pantry help supplement their meals with noodles, peanut butter, beans, fruits and vegetables. Maxwell says she doesn't know what she'd do without the food bank's help.
For more on hunger in America, go to hunger.usatoday.com
"Recovery is a slow process," Maxwell says. "There are a lot of people in crisis. When you face food insecurity, it's hard to feel secure again."

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/Qey3Uy

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Tianna Gaines Turner can't remember the last time she went to bed without worrying about how she was going to feed her three children. She can't remember the last time she woke up and wasn't worried about how she and her husband would make enough in their part-time jobs to buy groceries and pay utilities on their apartment in a working-class section of Philadelphia.

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6 startling facts about child hunger in the U.S. — and howyou can help

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6 startling facts about child hunger in the U.S. — and howyou can help

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When Americans think of childhood hunger, they might picture the skeletal frames and swollen bellies of children from faraway nations - but that isn't the full story.

According to Feeding America, 1 in 7 people in the U.S. face hunger every year. The rates of hunger in children are even higher, with about 1 in 5 lacking proper access to food at some point during the year.

"You see a lot of PSAs about international hunger and how hunger is threatening lives around the world," Clay Dunn, chief communications officer at nonprofit No Kid Hungry, tells Mashable. "What most people don't realize is that we have an epidemic of hunger right here."

"We have an epidemic of hunger right here."

It's called food insecurity, and it's a metric tracked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pinpoint how many households struggle during the year to provide food for their families.

"[Food insecurity] looks like lots of things," Dunn says. "It looks like empty cupboards in some households. It looks like having to choose between paying the electric bill or buying groceries in other households. There are a lot of families struggling to make ends meet, stretching money to cover costs, including food."

In the U.S., hunger is caused by the prevalence of poverty, not food scarcity. Stable food access is often blocked for low-income families that struggle to balance the need for food with other basic necessities.

Whether your realize it or not, this is an issue in your community, too. Feeding America found that food insecurity exists in every county and congressional district in the country.

The realities of food insecurity often mean that kids especially lack food access in summer months - a time when families can't rely on free or reduced lunch programs to pick up some of the burden of feeding their children.

"About 21 million children receive free or reduced lunch in school," Ross Fraser, director of media relations at Feeding America, tells Mashable. "And, of those, about 10 million also receive free breakfast. When schools close, about 18 million of those kids lose access to free meals in the summer."

With such a large issue impacting our local and national communities, here are six illuminating facts about child hunger in the United States - and what you can do to help.

1. 16 million American kids struggle with hunger each year.

An estimated 48.8 million Americans, including 16.2 million children, live in households that lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis.

As a result, about 1 in 5 children go hungry at some point during the year.

2. 62% of teachers say children in their classrooms are coming to school hungry.

Educators in the U.S. are acutely aware of childhood hunger's massive impact. About 3 out of 4 American teachers notice their students aren't able to access adequate amounts of food.

"Children come to school hungry, and a hungry child can't learn," Dunn says. "We need to make sure their stomachs are full so they are hungry for knowledge, not food."

School lunches - and the uptick of school breakfast programs - help curb some of the barriers in access. But lacking stable food access at home can have devastating impacts on a child's ability to get the most out of their education.

3. Children facing hunger are twice as likely to repeat a grade in elementary school.

Children who go hungry are more likely to miss school and receive poorer grades - which leads to trouble keeping up in class.

"There is a direct correlation between lack of nutrition and thwarted development."

Hunger is also associated with stomachaches, headaches, depression, anxiety and a decreased ability to focus - all of which have an impact on educational attainment.

Research shows that hungry kids also struggle socially and behaviorally, making their experiences in school less than enjoyable. Studies have found that children from food-insecure families are more likely to drop out of high school before graduation.

"Not only is it tragic for kids to go hungry, but there are terrible ramifications," Fraser says. "We know there is a direct correlation between lack of nutrition and thwarted development."

4. Nearly half of all food stamp recipients are children.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - also known as SNAP, or food stamps - was put in place to help curb hunger in the U.S. Though the program is heavily stigmatized due to misconceptions that adults collect assistance they don't truly need, that myth is shattered by the fact that the program mostly serves children at risk of hunger.

Approximately 8.5 million American children received SNAP in 2010, the latest figures available. Perhaps most surprisingly, a staggering 49.2% of American kids will receive SNAP benefits at some point in their childhoods.

5. 20% of food-insecure families are not eligible for government assistance.

Though 8.5 million American children receive government assistance like SNAP to combat hunger, that doesn't address the full problem. Around 1 in 5 families with children with children experiencing food insecurity do not qualify for assistance-based programs, whether it's due to household income, employment requirements or otherwise.

Being locked out of government programs means these families face unique obstacles, not quite qualifying for safety nets, but not being able to make ends meet either.

6. Black and Latino children experience hunger at double the rate of white children.

More than 1 in 4 black households lack food security, compared to 1 in 10 white households. For Latino families, food insecurity affects 1 in 5 households.

Wealth inequality and a general lack of access to financial opportunity have a major impact on the amount and quality of food many non-white families can put on the table.

What you can do to help
Advocate
Dunn says the single most important thing people can do is become vocal advocates for children who do not have enough to eat - especially when it comes to federal funding for hunger-related programs.

"There are lobbyists for a lot of things out there," Dunn says. "But hungry kids don't have lobbyists."

While hungry children know they are hungry, they often don't have the platform to have their voices and needs heard - especially on a national scale. That's why advocates are essential.

"We need people to say that we can do better for our kids."

"Senators and congressmen respond to the will of the people," Fraser says. "And if we can have 50,000 advocates call and say, 'For God's sake, don't cut food stamps. What are you thinking?' - that does make a difference."

Fraser says Feeding America encourages advocates to call Congress to show their passion for the issue. To read up on the impact of federal programs, visit before calling your representative. Contact information for congressional representatives can be found .

Dunn says No Kid Hungry uses an email list to connect individuals with both local and national opportunities to advocate. To join the list, click .

"We need people to say that we can do better for our kids, and that no child deserves to grow up hungry," Dunn days.
Volunteer
Volunteering can have an immediately tangible impact on your local community. Food banks need volunteers who will sort, package and distribute food to food-insecure families - which directly helps hungry children in those families.

"Finding a local organization that really speaks to your needs and asking them how you can help is hugely beneficial," Dunn says.

Feeding America's nationwide network of food banks provides programs year-round that address the needs of 46 million people in the United States experiencing hunger, Fraser says. For more information on how you can volunteer at a Feeding America effort in your local area, visit .
Donate
You have options when it comes to donating to address hunger. Perhaps the most apparent option is donating food via food drives and in-person donations to food banks. But another option is supporting nonprofits doing the work to address the issue.

"Our organization, and organizations like ours on the local level, need resources to do the work we do," Dunn says.

To donate to No Kid Hungry's efforts, which includes summer meal programs and classes to help vulnerable families learn cooking skills, visit . To donate to Feeding America, which operates large-scale programs including summer food programs and in-school distribution of food through its Backpack Program, visit .
Spread awareness
Hunger in a national context is often unaddressed, leaving both children and families silenced and underserved due to stigma. Dunn and Fraser both say their organizations' programs to curb summer hunger are highly underutilized - in part because many families in need do not know they exist.

While spreading awareness of the issue in your local community, also share information about efforts to curb it, so those in need can reach the services created to help them. Parents and kids, for example, can easily find free summer meals provided by No Kid Hungry in their neighborhoods by texting FOOD to 877-877.

Fraser also recommends sharing the issue of hunger with children in your life, especially since they are probably encountering it in the classroom.

"When you donate food, tell the kids, 'I'm buying this jar of peanut butter because there are kids down the street who can't afford a jar of peanut butter,'" he says.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

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6 startling facts about child hunger in the U.S. -- and how you can help

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When Americans think of childhood hunger, they might picture the skeletal frames and swollen bellies of children from faraway nations - but that isn't the full story. According to Feeding America , 1 in 7 people in the U.S. face hunger every year.

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Why are there still so many hungry people in the world?

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Why are there still so many hungry people in the world?

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The greatest challenge for the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is to eradicate poverty and hunger while maintaining sustainable food security for all in a crowded and dramatically unequal world. Although the world has succeeded in reducing poverty in accordance with the millennium development goal (MDG) targets, food security and adequate nutrition have not been achieved.

The MDGs failed to treat food as a human right. Experience shows us that neither markets nor governments protect access to sufficient and nutritious food for everyone. Only accountability by those who produce food and regulate society can hope to achieve this protection, and this means that access to food needs to be treated as a human right, and not just as a policy goal or an outcome of a productive economy. Several constitutions and courts in Latin America have recently moved in this direction by making the right to food a legally enforceable right, but the international system, including the UN, still lags behind.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), almost 1 billion people suffer from chronic hunger and almost 2 billion are under- or overnourished.

Children are the most visible victims of nutritional deficiencies. Approximately 5 million children die each year because of poor nutrition. Access to adequate food during the first 1,000 days of life is vitally important for healthy future generations. Even a temporary lack of food during that crucial time has a negative effect on physical and intellectual development. I was shocked when told that in Haiti, even before the devastating earthquake that ruined the country, that small mud balls were being sold in the market to ease children's hunger pangs.

Of the world's hungry people, 98% live in developing countries. The root causes of food insecurity and malnutrition are poverty and inequity rather than shortages. FAO statistics confirm that the world produces enough food to feed the 7 billion people living today, and even the estimated 9-10 billion population in 2050. Global agriculture produces 17% more calories per person today than 30 years ago, despite a 70% increase in population.

Despite this, for the 2 billion people making less than $2 a day - many of whom live in rural areas where resource-poor farmers cultivate small plots of land - most can't afford to buy food. It is the economic system that is responsible for this prevalence of poverty and hunger. Recently, climate change has been added to the list of causes.

Smallholder farmers tell us that this is a lifestyle for them, not a business. When they have had to leave their land for financial reasons, they have never emotionally recovered. I have heard these stories in many places; not only in poor developing countries. It is a global phenomenon.

If the international community is serious about eliminating hunger, a shift is needed from a development model based on charity and aid to one based on human rights, reinforced by accountability mechanisms. Marginalised, disempowered and excluded groups previously locked out of development planning must have a place, including minorities, migrants, and poor, disabled, older and indigenous people. Non-discrimination and equality must underpin the entire SDG framework.

The role of women in development and food security is pivotal. Highlighting women's rights in all other targets of the SDGs should be a priority. Of those suffering chronic hunger, 60% are women. This is especially ironic as women do most of the agricultural work in developing countries. Much of the work women do is unpaid and invisible, despite its indispensable role in feeding children and elderly people. Upholding women's financial, educational and legal rights would be the best use of funds dedicated to eradicating hunger, poverty and child undernourishment.

Food security is dependent on the sustainability of food supply. A major effort is needed to avoid practices that exacerbate the negative impacts of food production and consumption on climate, water and ecosystems. The SDGs should make a healthy environment an internationally guaranteed human right.

The SDGs should encourage governments to work towards policy coherence: agricultural policies should be compatible with environmental sustainability and trade rules consistent with food security. This will not be easy to implement. It will require allowing national food markets in developing countries to compete successfully against cheap imported food. It means altering international trade rules to prevent interference with domestic policies in developing countries designed to eradicate hunger and poverty.

Placing human rights at the heart of the SDGs presupposes both a strong accountability framework and the will to enforce this. Transnational corporations can be part of the problem, tending to undermine the livelihood of locals, displacing them from their home and land, interfering with their access to natural resources, and causing environmental destruction. Responsibility for human rights violations must extend to the private sector. International law has traditionally been reluctant to do this. It is encouraging to note that some modest steps have been taken recently to encourage corporate responsibility, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and Maastricht Principles for Extraterritorial Obligations (pdf). The SDGs could incorporate these documents in their policy guidelines, or adopt their own version.

The new goals should not be allowed to operate as easily ignored principles, but need to be given teeth. We can eradicate poverty, maintain food security and ensure the right to adequate and nutritious food for all. These fundamental aims were long ago set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and repeated in the International Covenant of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The task is huge, but the tools are there. The challenge is mainly a matter of fashioning political will strong enough to overcome entrenched interests in maintaining food insecurity.

* Hilal Elver is the UN special rapporteur on the right to food
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Why are there still so many hungry people in the world? | Hilal Elver

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The greatest challenge for the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is to eradicate poverty and hunger while maintaining sustainable food security for all in a crowded and dramatically unequal world. Although the world has succeeded in reducing poverty in accordance with the millennium development goal (MDG) targets, food security and adequate nutrition have not been achieved.

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Hunger eats away at Venezuela’s soul as its people struggle to survive

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Hunger eats away at Venezuela’s soul as its people struggle to survive

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The Maduro regime denies its oil-rich country is in crisis. But on the streets the desperation cannot be hidden

unger is gnawing at Venezuela, where a government that claims to rule for the poorest has left most of its 31 million people short of food, many desperately so. As night falls over Caracas, and most of the city's residents lock their doors against its ever more violent streets, Adriana Velásquez gets ready for work, heading out into an uncertain darkness as she has done since hunger forced her into the only job she could find at 14.

She was introduced to her brothel madam by a friend more than two years ago after her mother, a single parent, was fired and the two ran out of food. "It was really hard, but we were going to bed without eating," said the teenager, whose name has been changed to protect her.

Since then Venezuela's crisis has deepened, the number of women working at the brothel has doubled, and their ages have dropped. "I was the youngest when I started. Now there are girls who are 12 or 13. Almost all of us are there because of the crisis, because of hunger."

She earns 400,000 bolivares a month, around four times the minimum wage, but at a time of hyperinflation that is now worth about $30, barely enough to feed herself, her mother and a new baby brother. She has signed up to evening classes that run before her nightly shift, and hopes to one day escape from a job where "everything is ugly".

Velásquez grew up in one of Caracas's poorest and most violent districts, but Venezuela's food crisis respects neither class nor geography. The pangs of hunger are felt through the corridors of its major businesses, behind the microphone on radio shows, in hospitals where malnutrition is climbing sharply and already claiming lives, and at schools where children faint and teachers skip classes to queue for food.

Nearly three-quarters of Venezuelans have lost weight over the past year, and the average loss was a huge 9kg, or nearly a stone and a half, according to a survey by the country's top universities. For many that is simply because food is too expensive. Nine out of 10 homes can't cover the cost of what they should eat.

And 10 million people skip at least one meal a day, often to help feed their children.

David González, not his real name, had a college degree, a career and modest middle-class dreams of owning a car and a house before Venezuela slipped towards its current crisis, and spiralling inflation made the food he needed to stay alive unaffordable. In a cafe in downtown Caracas, he explains how his dreams shrank with his wasting body, now so emaciated that ribs and collarbones poke through a once-chubby chest.

"It's sad because you stop thinking of what your professional goals and challenges are and instead just focus on what you can eat," said the 29-year-old activist and journalist. Like many of Venezuela's hungry middle classes he was ashamed of his situation.

"I had seen people suffering, I saw people queueing for bread, but it had not reached me, I didn't expect it would," he said. "Never in my life had I spent a night worrying about what I would eat tomorrow."

This year he has done little else. He stands 5ft 7in tall, and has lost more than a quarter of his body mass, shrinking to little over 50kg (7st 12lb) since the start of the year. During a checkup for a new job, doctors diagnosed a heart murmur caused by stress and hunger. He gets up at 5am to queue for food, but sometimes it isn't there.

"Its like an obstacle course. You have to find money to buy food, a place to buy it and then get there in time," he said, with a wry grin that has survived better than his health, before adding: "One of the good things about Venezuelans is they laugh about it all - food, and security and health."

This summer he swallowed his pride and signed up for a monthly box of subsidised food sold by the government for about $1. "I didn't want to be part of that scheme. But I had to change my decision, to literally not die of hunger."

President Nicolás Maduro says Venezuela's problems are the result of "economic warfare" waged by the US. He points to Donald Trump's public mulling of a "military option" earlier this month as evidence Washington is pushing for regime change, and on Friday slammed ramped-up US sanctions against the government and the state-owned oil corporation as an overt bid to undermine the government by forcing it to default on debt.

Former foreign minister and top aide Delcy Rodríguez has denied the country has a food crisis, denouncing the "blackmail of hunger". She told the new legislative super-body she heads: "In Venezuela there is no hunger, there is willpower. There is indignation and courage to defend Venezuela."

But critics and economists say the crisis is both real and self-inflicted, the result of a government using a raft of imports as a shortcut to meet promises of development and food security during the heady years of an oil price boom. Venezuela used to produce more than two-thirds of its food, and import the rest, but those proportions are now reversed, with imports making up around 70% of what the country eats.

When crude prices began sliding in 2014, bringing down oil earnings, it left the country short of dollars, and the government decided to focus its income on servicing the national debt rather than importing food.

"This administration decided people have to eat less for them to balance their accounts," said Efraín Velásquez, president of the semi-official National Economic Council. "That implies poverty, social deterioration, that people are worse off."

Supplies dried up and inflation sliced through savings and earnings, slashing the value of the currency by more than 99% since Maduro's 2013 election. Bolivares bought with $1,000 then would be worth little over a dollar at today's black market rate.

There has been no official inflation data from the government since 2015, but the opposition puts the figure at 250% in the first seven months of the year. In a tacit recognition of the scale of the problem, the president himself boosted the minimum wage nearly 500% last year, to "offset inflation".

"We are the only country in the world where people dread a wage hike, because they know the price of food will follow [up]," said Ingrid Soto de Sanabria, head of nutrition at Venezuela's top children's hospital, who has been raising the alarm about the steep rise in cases of malnutrition.

The number of children with severe malnutrition who were admitted to the hospital rose from 30 in 2015 to 110 last year, and looks set to climb further this year based on figures from the first half of the year, she said. There has been a subtle shifting in the nature of the problems parents face. Formula for babies who can't be breastfed was hard to track down anywhere last year, with shortages so severe they claimed the lives of newborns.

Since the government unofficially relaxed price controls there are more supplies, but parents struggle to pay for what they need, she said. "Last year there were terrible shortages, this year there are less shortages, but the prices are through the roof.

"We don't have formula, and what little we do is thanks to donations," she said. Mothers who are malnourished can struggle to breastfeed, exacerbating the problem.

Catholic charity Caritas has been among those raising the alarm, after launching a project to monitor and tackle child nutrition across four Venzeulan states. "Humanitarian help is needed to save lives. I wouldn't have said that a year ago, because people weren't dying," said Susana Raffalli, who led the project. After decades tackling food crises around the world, from Pakistan to Algeria, she was horrified to find herself doing the same in her native Venezuela.

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People check bags of foodstuff inside one of the food distribution centres, which have been set up by local committees 'for supply and production' in Caracas. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

"Its not a country with a tradition of humanitarian crises like others in the region," she said. But malnutrition has been rising sharply, with more than half of all children affected in some way. The percentage of children showing signs of acute malnourishment climbed from 8% last October to 12% in July. That is well over the 10% threshold for a severe food crisis, and she fears it is still rising. If acute malnourishment reaches 15%, international agencies consider a country or area to be in a state of food emergency.

"They are getting younger, and the cases more serious," said Raffalli, who is particularly disturbed about the long-term implications, for individuals and for the country. Malnutrition in the youngest children can stunt development for life.

"If children are severely malnourished under two years old, it has an irreversible effect. The first 1,000 days are the most important in the life of a baby, and sets up the cognitive situation that will affect them for their whole life."

She is waiting for funding to take the survey, and food support, to a wider range of provinces. It fills a gap in data left by a government that has not published statistics on nutrition for several years, and a gap in support left by failed public support programmes.

But she warns that no feeding programme can do anything more than protect individual children. "We need this help because people are being harmed, they are dying. But it's a temporary solution, it won't resolve the problem of supply and access to food."

Many mothers are already fearful. Luisa García, not her real name, wept when she heard her malnourished son had been nursed back to health by the Caritas feeding project, but not tears of joy. She was still unemployed, with empty cupboards and a bare fridge, and yet the food handouts he had been living on would end.

"On the day they said he was up to weight, I went away crying, because I had nothing to give him to eat. I counted on that food," the 38-year-old recalled as she waited in line at a church soup kitchen, also organised by Caritas. "We eat like crabs, picking a little where we can. Often only once a day, at best twice."

The volunteers who make and serve the soup understand the desperation; they too have become familiar with the gnawing pain of an empty stomach. "We are all professionals and we spend almost everything we earn on food and basic needs," said Rosalinda Rodríguez, a retired teacher who hasn't bought new clothes since 2014, and has lost 12kg over the past year.

Although she is still in her own words "stout", she was recently diagnosed with anaemia because she is eating such poor quality food. Another volunteer has shrunk even more. "Life has been totally derailed," said Ricardo López, a lawyer whose son went to an international school until the crises shrank his salary - paid in bolivares - to far below the foreign currency tuition fees.

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Empty shelves in Caracas. Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

"I try to leave lunch as late as possible myself, so you can just have a snack in the evening. My colleagues sometimes faint from hunger, or don't have lunch."

As with other former members of the middle class, the crisis has brought not just hunger but a hollowing out of his life. Cinemas, meals out, gym membership, even hiking in hills around the city have been cut out by the need to stave off hunger. López, who asked for his real name to be withheld, has so little money left these days after paying for food and other essentials that he could only budget 15,000 bolivares, or a single US dollar, to enjoy the summer holiday with his son.

Instead of beach trips, he spent August weekends feeding those who are even worse off. "We thought no one would come but then we were full. Hunger doesn't take holidays."

The crisis has left the promises, and legacy, of former president Hugo Chávez, in tatters. He rose to power and stayed there until his death from cancer in 2013, in large part promising a more equitable distribution of the country's oil wealth and food security for all. The benefits were real for many Venezuelans, and even if they have not proved sustainable they nurtured a fierce loyalty that carried Maduro to power and a base that is sticking with him through hardship.

Even today his supporters include those who have lost serious amounts of weight, pine for their favourite food, and have been separated from beloved relatives by the vast exodus of Venezuelans seeking a better chance of going to bed on a full stomach.

"If we supported Chávez with oil at $100 a barrel, we have to support him now with it down at $40 a barrel," said Henny Liendo, a cocoa cooperative member in the village of Chuao. Diets have shifted back to patterns more familiar to parents and grandparents, to fish, root vegetables and bananas, with less sugar, flour and meat.

He sees his curtailed diet and occasional hunger as sacrifices in a bigger war, but mourns for the past. "We were happy and we didn't know it," Venezuelans say in towns and villages, looking back over recent turbulent decades. The government's most recent effort to hang on to Chávez's legacies has been the boxes of subsidised food, known colloquially by their Spanish initials CLAP, that were launched last year. They bundle imported food together for a low price. They never last a whole month, often little more than a week for large families, but they bring cheap food and much needed variety, staples-turned-luxuries like mayonnaise, butter and milk powder into homes.

When González, the activist, got his first government box after months of waiting, he sat down to a dinner of arepas, the national corn-flour patties, with butter and cheese and a cup of milky coffee. Once an everyday meal, it felt, he said, like a luxurious indulgence.

For the very poorest in this crumbling economy, though, even a dollar to pay for them can be out of reach. "We eat yuca, bananas, green papaya," said Katiuska Pérez, not her real name, a 28-year-old mother of six, who lives in the village of Tocoron. "When the boxes come I'm allowed two, but sometimes I can only afford one, or none at all."

Her five daughters all registered as severely malnourished when Caritas did checks, even though like many parents she had been cutting back her own meals to boost their portions.

"I feed them first, so they have enough to eat, and we go without," she said. Most recovered with feeding support, but on the latest visit her one-year-old had slipped back to six kilograms, a weight more appropriate for a baby half her age. Pérez said she feels hopeless. "We have been screwed for several years now. Everything that Chávez built with his hands has been kicked down."
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Hunger eats away at Venezuela's soul as its people struggle to survive

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Maduro regime denies its oil-rich country is in crisis. But on the streets the desperation cannot be hidden unger is gnawing at Venezuela, where a government that claims to rule for the poorest has left most of its 31 million people short of food, many desperately so.

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https://www.theodysseyonline.com

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As children starve, world struggles for solution

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As children starve, world struggles for solution

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As children starve, world struggles for solution - CNN.com

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Some mothers choose what their children will eat. Others choose which children will eat and which will die.

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Venezuelans Are So Hungry 'They Have to Loot to Eat'

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Sporadic looting, food riots and protests driven by the hungry poor have surged in Venezuela, a country that's no stranger to unrest.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games