Nana’s KidZ Weekend Backpack Club for hungry O.C. Kids
Orange County. Sixth most affluent county in the Nation. Beautiful beaches, multi- million dollar homes, known to be a great place to raise a family. And yet nearly 456,000 individuals go to bed hungry at least once during the month and an alarming 38% are children! For many of these kids, their primary source of food is in the school cafeteria through a free or reduced price lunch program.
Not possible where you live? To qualify for a free lunch, an Orange County student’s family of four cannot make more that $34,798 annually. That may seem like a low number yet, in Anaheim, the city that advertises itself as “the Happiest Place on Earth”, 85% of students meet the criteria that qualifies them for a free or reduced lunch. Santa Ana, the county seat of Orange County is the poorest City in America! 75% of its population lives at or below poverty level. Even in the picturesque Capistrano School District there are 7,088 students who rely on school lunches to remain food secure during the week. Hunger knows no boundaries.
But what happens to these kids on the weekends and in the summer when school is not in session? On Friday you might witness a chronically hungry child eating not only their own lunch but waiting in the cafeteria and eating the leftovers from other lunch trays as well. They know that when they get home, they may be hungry for the rest of the weekend. Monday morning finds them rushing the food lines at the school cafeteria. Summers seem like an endless wasteland.
Two hundred and seventy-five dollars ($300) per year per student will enable a student in Orange County to eat every weekend instead of fighting hunger from Friday lunch until Monday breakfast at school. It will also provide 21 meals per week over the summer months!
In 1995, a nurse in Little Rock Arkansas noticed that an increasing number of children were showing up with stomach aches and dizziness; not from illness, but because they were hungry. She arranged for the children to be sent home with food. When the students carrying the food reported they were being teased for being poor, backpacks were donated that look like the ones most students use to lug books and school supplies.
The teasing stopped and the backpack idea caught on with schools around the state. As word spread, food banks and schools began designing take home meal packs for the neediest students. They are filled with child friendly food: nutritious, ready to open and nothing requiring stove top cooking. The food in each backpack cost around $4 for the entire weekend and weighed around 7 pounds.
Imagine the weight of keeping the secret that your family must choose whether to pay the rent/mortgage, utilities and gas or buy food. Perhaps it’s an even tougher decision because there is a medical need and no insurance. Now, compound thatwith the added difficulty and shame of living in a motel.
This kind of hidden poverty is not as uncommon as you might think. Nearly 12% of all US households are uncertain they can afford to feed their families at some point during the year. 93% of those who have had to rely on the assistance of food banks are American citizens, 40% are white, and only 12% are homeless. An estimated 25 million children were served through a national network of food pantries and feeding centers just last year.
There seems to be little interest in Washington for costly new government-administered efforts to address poverty. It is the privately funded, grass roots efforts that are springing up in an attempt to make life better for those in need. We can’t solve all the problems these lower income families face. But we can do something to make sure that no one; no one child in Orange County goes hungry!
Won’t you partner with us as we mobilize to eliminate this unnecessary tragedy? We can fight this war on hunger one child at a time. Consider that for what you may spend for one family lunch at your local fast food restaurant, you could feed a food insecure child every weekend for a month.
That’s right, for just $25 per month; you can sponsor a child in Orange County so that he or she faces every Friday with a burden lifted that no child should carry. The burden of hunger.
Nana’s KidZ is making a plea to all churches and businesses in Orange County to adopt just 10 children (more if you feel led), identified by their teachers or community counselors to be at highest risk. That’s a commitment of just $250 per month. Donations will cover logistics such as transportation, the cost of the backpacks and food.
In addition, we are calling on schools and community organizations to recycle backpacks and hold food specific food drives throughout the school year to help us expand the program. Hosting talent shows, contests, or even building a castle out of peanut butter jars are all fun ways to get involved and make this program your own.
Nana’s Kidz is a program of “Grandma’s House” – a non profit multi generational continuum of care that believes that family is meant to care for one another from childhood into our senior years. It is by helping one another and a willingness to serve that we build community. Other programs include: Paloma House – a women’s transitional living shelter for women who are victims of Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking and Homelessness; “Grandma’s Room”- a friendly visitor program designed to honor our seniors by transforming their often sterile environments back into a cozy nest full of love and respect.
Hunger is a community crisis and it will take a whole community, every part of it, to end hunger in Orange County. There is something everyone can do!
To get involved, Please: contact Je’net Kreitner
(714) 457-3187
jenet@grandmashope.org
www.grandmashouseofhope.org
