Being hungry affects children for life. Their hunger affects our communities every day.
It’s time to restock food pantries across the Atlanta metro area. After a summer of high demand because children were out of school, many food pantries’ shelves are nearly empty. You may have heard that’s because many children receive lunch and even breakfast at school. But don’t relax now that they are going back to school.
Where do these children get their dinners during the week, and their meals on the weekend? Many families struggle to provide those meals and look to their local food pantry to help fill the gap.
I am a volunteer for Quinn House, a Lawrenceville Christian ministry for food distribution, clothing/home goods assistance and men’s addiction recovery. There, I have learned a lot about hunger, als0 known as food insecurity.
Food insecurity means you don’t always know where you will find your next meal. Georgia ranks seventh in the country for food insecurity; nearly 30 percent of Georgia’s children experience it each day. In the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s 29-county service area, the figure is 24.5 percent of children.
What has disturbed me most is learning how food insecurity affects a child’s present and future. Child hunger is a health, educational and workforce and job readiness problem. It affects the future well-being of our communities.
Some people who know about the child hunger problem help with donations to food pantries. I am not sure why so many who can help do not. Sometimes a problem can seem far away from our own reality. Either it doesn’t happen in my neighborhood, or it doesn’t affect my life and the future of my children. These reasons are false for all of us.
The people served by the Feeding America food bank network include many we don’t think of as food insecure. The majority of adults have at least a high school diploma; more than one-quarter have completed education beyond high school. More than 10 percent are current students, continuing their education. About 20 percent of households contain someone who has either past or present military service.
Among households with at least one child, more than half fall below the poverty line, but the others earn more than that. Nearly half live in houses or townhouses and another third, in apartments. Over the last few years, economic conditions have moved many of our neighbors from security to insecurity about many things, including food.
Studies by Harvard University and others show us the bigger picture of how hunger affects children’s health, behavior and future job readiness. Hungry children are sick more often, have impaired development, do more poorly in school and have more social and behavioral problems. They are not as well-prepared physically, mentally, emotionally or socially to perform effectively in the modern workforce. They create a pool of workers that’s less competitive, with lower educational and technical skills. Child hunger leads to greater health care costs for families and employers and greater absenteeism and turnover in the workplace.
If this bigger picture makes you want to do something about child hunger, support your local food pantry. Quinn House and all food pantries need shelf-stable protein like canned tuna, chicken and peanut butter and also cereals, rice, macaroni and cheese and canned soups/pastas. Local food pantries use monetary donations to get food at minimal cost from the Atlanta Community Food Bank. They are able to use each $1 donated to provide more than $9 in groceries for someone in need.
You can also volunteer for a food or fund drive, sort and pack food boxes, help at a garden or assist at an event. You will be helping our children and improving the future of your community.
Denise Townsend is a volunteer for the Quinn House, a Lawrenceville ministry that distributes food and addresses other unmet needs.
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