Chew Observation Report

In the United States many citizens face hunger, starvation and malnutrition on a daily basis. This food insecurity affects millions of Americans. Food insecurity is caused when Americans don’t have enough money to purchase food for themselves and their family. When children experience hunger if affects them both physically and psychologically. “Children who are denied an adequate diet are at a greater risk of not reaching their full potential as individuals. Undernourished youngsters have trouble concentrating and bonding with other children and are more likely to suffer illnesses resulting in school absences.” (Karger, p 371) It is important for children to meet their full potential in order for society to continue thriving into the future. If children are not receiving an adequate education because they have an empty stomach, then they will not continue to higher education or they will do poorly. In order to combat hunger in children the federal government responded with several major programs. Two of the programs the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) are targeted towards school age children. These programs provide students with breakfast and lunch while they are at school.

School lunches are often unsung heroes of many modern American households. Frequently overlooked and disregarded because of their stigma, school lunches are a key ingredient that may help make the world a better place. Unknowingly, great numbers of individuals in our communities deal with food insecurities every day of their lives. It baffles me that in an advanced society many people do not have the resources to provide food for themselves or their families. Until it affected me personally, I was unaware nor passionate about the struggles of food insecurity. My passion for solving food insecurity in my local community has led me to gain both experience and leadership through understanding and advocating for those around me.

It makes me glad to know that people enjoy the food they're eating. However, I would rather not hear them eat that food or see it. My most intense pet peeve is speaking or opening one's mouth while it is filled with food. From a young age, I've been taught that chewing food with a closed mouth is proper etiquette. Apparently, not all people were raised to mind their manners when they eat. Open-mouth chewing is a form of bad manners, annoys those nearby who are trying to eat in peace, and is simply repulsive.

When resources are limited, children struggle to stay in school and tend to fall behind. According to a census of the area in which Harvesters provides food to, “20 percent of children under age 18 in our region… is food insecure,” and of that twenty percent, “38 percent of the food insecure children live in households that do not qualify for federal nutrition programs” (“Harvesters”). My heart breaks every time I hear there are children starving in the world, but it is even more heartbreaking to know there are children in my hometown that are struggling to live off of the very little food they are provided. This is why I love this program because nothing is more fulfilling than seeing the eyes of a child light up when they see all that they get to take home with

Considering the following statistics, it is clear why Hunger Free Colorado’s work is so important: Nearly 1 in 7 Coloradans struggled with hunger in 2013, facing times when there was not enough money to buy food for their families or themselves (Colman-Jenson, Gregory, & Singh, 2013). More than 1 in 5 Colorado households with children (22%) reported food hardship, facing financial challenges to put food on the table (Food Research and Action Center, 2013). More than 1 in 8 Coloradans lived in poverty, including 1 in 6 kids, during 2013 (Bishaw & Fontenot, 2014).

Since the implementation of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, many school nutrition programs have had challenges in meeting the new standards. Several districts across the nation have indicated a decline in lunch meal participation and financial viability as a result. However, during this time, SLA Management experienced the majority of its growth in the number of schools under contract and, more importantly, the number of meals served. Our meals have always been both tasty and nutritious. Fact is, kids love them!

In order to maximize our program’s ability to provide nutritious meals and snacks, we participate in the federal school nutrition programs, which includes the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. According to the Department of Agriculture, the National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program for public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions (2015). It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day. On the same note, our program participates in School Breakfast Program. The department of Agriculture specifies that this program provides cash assistance to states to operate nonprofit breakfast programs in schools and residential childcare institutions. Both the National School Lunch Program, and the School Breakfast Program, ensures that the children receive the adequate nutrition while the our

The “Cooking Matter” program will be responsible for three interventions to help alleviate child hunger by recruiting college student participants. (See appendix J for group work VII on intervention development). The first intervention was “Read It before You Eat It!” this intervention will demonstrate the correct way to read nutrition and food labels. Each participant will examine the actual food packaging labels of different food items such as whole wheat pasta, regular pasta, bread, cheese, and

In our advertisement for Feeding America, my group appealed to our audience of classmates and Ms. Buescher through the relatability and necessity of proper nutrition. My group, consisting of Irene, Nia, and myself, spoke about hunger because we realized the importance of a proper diet and how our audience could understand the urgent necessity for hunger relief in America. Our audience may not have originally understood the scale of hunger in America, so we provided a statistic to show that one out of every eight people face hunger. This and other devices, such as the image, additional statistics, and textual explanation, were used to persuade the audience to donate to Feeding America.

The school food service program had underperformed for years and had been siphoning valuable dollars from limited education funds to support operations. To make matters more troublesome, implementing the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act was presenting a major challenge. Meal participation had been declining, and in 2011, LWCS had to use $77,000 dollars from the general fund to cover foodservice shortfalls. During an audit, SLA was recommended to LWCS as a solution to their food service issues and as a partner that could customize a program to fit their multi-cultural and school community culture.

A direct action that resonated with me from the course readings was that of the Mass Hunger Clinics provided by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty(OCAP), starting in 2005. The Mass Hunger Clinic resonated with me because it is, for me, something real. It is a struggle that I see every day at work with a lot of my students and I have been for many years part of the food for learning program with my school board. The lack of nutritious foods and the resources to obtain them is something that shouldn’t happen. It made me very upset to think about these families and the length they had to go to in order to provide for both themselves and their families. The OCAP developed these Mass Hunger Clinics as an “initiative focused on the special diet

“The agriculture Department estimated in 1999 that twelve million children were hungry or at risk of going hungry.” She proclaimed. The cause of that could be because parents who can’t afford or find service programs to park their vacationing children in front of the television, lock the door, and go to work hoping for

Throughout my research on MIFA I have learned just how much of an impact the organization has had in combating the hunger in Memphis. MIFA is a pillar of our community both from the work it does to serve senior and families in crisis, and by brining our community together in the vision of a better Memphis. Those who give to and through MIFA care little about being recognized for donations, but receive satisfaction from knowing their service helps those who desperately need it. Their work has inspired me to sacrifice some of my weekends to help volunteer in the near future so I can do my

The first item on the agenda was the “ Analysis of the Food Insecurity Lectureship by the Myrlie Evers-Williams Institute.” Joanna Puddister-King led a discussion on the significance of information presented at the event. Several community organizations attended the meeting ( MS Food Network, Good Samaritans, Society for St Anthony, Jeremiah’s Bread, MS Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, etc.). They were extremely impressed by information they received and the panel discussion. They were also interested in our next events.

One of the core values of social work is service, whose goal is “to help people in need and to address social problems”.2 The goal of the National School Lunch Program is consistent with the values of social work through the cooperation among the three agencies of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA): the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), and the Farm Service Agency (FSA). The FNS serves as the primary liaison between USDA and local education agencies. It is responsible for the general administration of the National School Lunch Program. The FSA and the AMS work hand in hand as the purchasing and delivery arm. In the past 68 years, over 31 million children have been served nutritious lunch in more than 101,000 public or non-profit private schools that participated in the National School Lunch Program.1