Addressing Hunger in Our Schools
Posted by Katherine Campbell on Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Last week, the USDA released that nearly 17 million children in the US are at risk of hunger each year. That is one out of every five kids. Or five kids in an average classroom. Yesterday, Share Our Strength hosted a webinar and conference to release Hunger In America’s Classroom: Share Our Strength’s Teachers Report.
We heard from Share Our Strength’s executive director, Billy Shore, the President of Lake Research Partners, Celinda Lake, and medical expert, Maria Gomez. However, 5th grade teacher, Christine Gottshal stole the show. She shared personal perspectives on the hunger her students face every day. And reminded us again that this problem is very real and no child should have to struggle with hunger.
The majority of her 5th grade students face hunger. And many times, they do anything they can to find extra food. They sneak and save extra snacks, they fill up on school meals because they don’t know if they’ll get dinner tonight, and they even dig through the garbage cans to find extra food.
As Christine pointed out, kids need our help to end this problem. On test days, Christine buys a full healthy breakfast for her class and can see the immense difference this makes. If she could afford it, she would do this regularly, but on a teacher’s budget, she can only afford to bring in extra food once and a while.
Teachers see hunger every day and they want America to see the affects and reality of child hood hunger in our country. Help us get the word out about hunger in our classrooms.
Learn more, hear from other teachers, and download the full report »
November 24, 2009 | | Tags: classroom, hunger, teachers
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