In developed countries, the US is ranked 34 out of 35 in child poverty. Only Romania has a higher child poverty rate than the US. “A new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund, on the well-being of children in 35 developed nations, turned up some alarming statistics about child poverty. More than one in [...]
I submit, for your consideration, some pretty appalling statistics: The number of kids in eastern Illinois who experienced very low food security in 2001 was 5,986. And in 2009 the number was 33,198–over five times higher than in 2001. The number of seniors in eastern Illinois who experienced low food security in 2001 was 1,681. And in [...]
I like the way charts help us see the effect of programs we work with, like this one from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This chart is based on the most recently released data from the Census Bureau. The standard way in which we measure poverty in the US does not take into [...]
1 in 4 kids may not have enough to eat today. So hundreds of local kids are coming together to do something about it. The School Food Fight, part of the Foodbank’s annual Food for Families Drive, encourages school-age students to raise money to provide food and funds —measured in “meals”—to hungry local families. [...]
A low-income child care center recently sent us this lovely note: “Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your wonderful program. Without this agency we would not have been able to serve the children.” We have about 220 different programs in our fourteen counties. The pantries serve an average of 45,000 people [...]
When you get something in your mail that says there is a study out from Kenneth Hanson of the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture called “The Food Assistance National Input-Output Multiplier (FANIOM) Model and Stimulus Effects of SNAP” you might not get very excited about it. I mean, really; my [...]
Occasionally I hear from community members that it doesn’t really matter what we feed people at risk of hunger—if they’re hungry, the fact that there is food of any sort is what counts. Sometimes this seems right; if you’re hungry, you’re hungry. But the more I think about it, the less “just feed people anything [...]
Some days it’s just hard to work in hunger relief. The numbers of people in need keep climbing, and we scramble harder to get more food knowing that it still won’t be enough. People are still struggling to get adequate, nutritious food on their tables. And then some days out of the blue we will hear [...]
You may be surprised at the rates of college graduates that are struggling to put food on the table.
Can we simultaneously improve school meal nutrition and support local food? A new program out of the USDA tries to do just that.
