Have you ever seen hunger in the face? It doesn’t discriminate… it’s nagging and it’s predominant in Texas! Here’s a shocking stat… the states of Arkansas (24.4 percent) and Texas (24.3 percent) have the highest rates of children in households without consistent access to food. (Cook, John, Child Food Insecurity in the United States: 2006-2008.)
Nationally, 17 million children are at risk of hunger. That’s nearly 1 in 4 kids who are struggling with hunger. Imagine that starving feeling right now as you’re reading this… you know, you’re “dying” for that next meal. Well guess what, over 300,000 in Dallas County face this DAILY…. Not eating, hence not growing and not learning.
I got to stare down hunger in Hollywood this past weekend during a Child Hunger Ends Here Campaign and over the next several months I’m dedicating my efforts at explaining the hunger issue and coming up with “tangible, simple and effortless” ways to feed our children.
It’s SOOOO Simple… for every UPC collected by schools through December, a monetary donation will be made enabling one meal to be secured by Feeding America on behalf of local food banks… up to 2 million meals. ConAgra Foods will help provide up to 5 million meals to Feeding America. $1 donated = 8 meals
Let’s break this down into the first every county wide statistic…
Dallas County is served by the North Texas Food Bank
Child Food Insecurity Rate: 27.9%
Estimated number of food insecure children: 187,310
North Texas Food Bank
Service area child food insecurity rate: 25.6%
Estimated number of food insecure children in service area: 314,200
ConAgra is helping to raise awareness of a critical issue facing our communities and they’ve joined forces with Schools Fight Hunger and Feeding America to inspire ALL of us to get involved. It’s so simple how you can help.
From August through December, parents and students can help end child hunger in our own communities:
School Food Drives- host or participate in school-sponsored food drives to collect food to be donated to local food banks in each community. The Child Hunger Ends Here campaign has set a nationwide goal of 2 million pounds of food. Just visit ChildHungerEndsHere.com to register your school for the program. Every school that participates will be entered for a chance to win one of several price packs, including the grand prices- $10,000 to fund school field trips.
Collect UPC’s- Parents can help students collect UPC codes from participating ConAgra Foods brands. For each UPC Collected, ConAgra Foods will make a monetary donation enabling Feeding America to secure one meal for those in need.
Here are the brands:
Banquet, Hunts, Chef Boyardee, Orville Redenbacher’s, Marie Callender’s, Peter Pan, Healthy Choice, Manwich, Snack Pack
Don’t forget to follow ConAgra Foods on Twitter and Facebook for updates
www.facebook.com/conagrafoods
#childhunger @conagrafoods
Want to keep up with the free stuff, coupons, and ways to save money? Subscribe NOW it’s free!
