This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walmart for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
My kids say the same thing everyday after school,
"I am STARVING and we have nothing to eat".
Well, I am not sure they realize what an important topic hunger has become.
I thought it might be a good time to talk to them about
the estimated 50 million Americans who really are hungry,
and see what their reaction was.
I approached my 14 year old, Carolyn
as she hit the fridge before starting her homework...
and Jack (age 12) as he was tending to his new tomato plants...
I asked them if they were aware that more than
16 million American children live in "food insecure" homes.
More than likely, there are kids that they go to school with
who don't know where their next meal is coming from.
Of course, at first they were only half listening to me,
but when I said possibly someone they know may be hungry they wanted to know "Why?".
Why would someone in our "nice" town not have enough to eat?
I let them know times are hard for a lot of people, you never know and shouldn't judge.
Carolyn was shocked,
she said everyone throws away "a lot" of their lunch at school.
Jack thought we should start a
"community garden"
where people could go and get all the fresh fruit and vegetables they wanted.
We talked about the Holiday canned food drives at
our grocery store and their school and
I asked them if they know where our donations go...
they had no idea.
They wanted to know why it was only around the holidays that food was needed and
I told them awareness is heightened then, but food banks ALWAYS need help.
Food and Volunteers.
We discussed how Walmart is working with Feeding America and ten of the most recognizable food companies in America this spring to launch the third chapter of the Fighting Hunger Together initiative, which this time will focus on reducing hunger across the nation.
To help all we needed to do was go on line and vote for our local food bank...
Fighting Hunger Together initiative will deliver $3 million in grants for hunger programs and generate millions of meals for local Feeding America food banks and their partner agencies across the U.S. between April 1 and April 30.
You can easily help too.
Vote and volunteer to fight hunger this spring with Walmart
Cast one vote per day to Feeding America food bank or their partner agency in local communities across the country. The 100 winning food banks will share $3 million in grants to fund hunger relief programs. The winners will be announced in May.
You can also pledge to volunteer on the website as well.
I would love to know why and what food bank would you vote for.
Have you volunteered? Do you plan to?
It is such an important discussion to get started!
Yes, I run our church's food pantry; we are a downtown church and some of our guests live on the river banks. Reno has a transient population and many people live in "weekly" motels. We make up 84 bags of groceries the 1st distribution of the month, 96 the 2nd distribution (2 weeks later), and 108 if there are 3 distributions (5 Saturdays). We do them in increments of 12 because cases of food are usually in 12s.
ReplyDeleteAfter we assemble the bags (we have about 20 volunteers), it takes us about 8 minutes to give away the food. Although I love my volunteer work, the hardest thing is telling the 85th or 97th or 109th person, "sorry, we ran out of groceries."
We like doing "little" things to let our guests know we care about them. We provide hot coffee on cold mornings and "otter pops" in the summer (we're high desert so we get below freezing winters and 100 degree summer days). We give decorated hard-cooked eggs for Easter (good protein source) and hope to get a reliable source of eggs to do this all year since many of our guests do not have cooking facilities (hot plate in a motel room or maybe an open fire on the river). We do hygiene kits for Thanksgiving and my mom crochets scarves and hats for Christmas; some of our volunteers wait until after holiday sales and buy men's gloves and mittens for $1 each and save them.
We call ourselves the "Drop in the Bucket" food pantry because we know we can't solve world hunger by ourselves . . . but we can do a little and many drops of water will eventually fill a bucket. Our Sunday school students sometimes help me make "snack packs," a ziplock bag with vienna sausages, granola bar, fruit cup, etc.
The coolest thing that ever happened is that one of our guests said "even though I'm Catholic, you Methodists have the best food pantry in town. You're always friendly and don't look down at us. When I come into money, I'm going to remember you." And, last September, she gave DIB its largest individual donation: $1,000!!!!
Nance in Reno
Oh Nance that is so great! You do so much and it is so appreciated.
DeleteThis is a beautifully written blog about what is happening in many families. I hope it inspires many to volunteer.
ReplyDelete