It breaks my heart that a child, tonight might be going to bed hungry. Not only are families having a hard time finding the money to purchase quality, healthy foods for their families because of job loss or lack of sufficient income, but finding a grocery store in downtown Detroit, with quality food and fresh fruits and vegetables is nearly impossible.
Did you know that Feeding America in Michigan provides emergency food to 1,173,700 different people annually?
Children are suffering. 38% of the household members that are receiving food in Michigan are children under 18 years old and 9% are children 0-5 years old. 34% of those households have one parent that is working and 75% have incomes below the federal poverty level.
When times are tough, making choices between food and utilities can become challenging
Can you imagine having to choose between keeping the heat on or feeding your family? Both are needed to keep your family healthy, but 42% of Feeding America clients in Michigan have reported that they have had to choose between food and utilities. They’ve also had to choose between food and medicine/medical care, food and gas/transportation and food and rent/mortgage.
The government is also helping out
58% of Feeding America clients are receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and 60 % participate in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).
Your assistance is needed
Many programs rely entirely on volunteers and with 2.6 million households, with children under 18 have very low food security. How sad to know a child somewhere, maybe next door, might be hungry and not sure if their parents will have enough money to buy some groceries because rent was all they had enough for that month.
How you can help?
Conagra Foods and Feeding America have teamed up to end child hunger in a Child Hunger Ends Here campaign. They are giving you the tools to do your part by having a bake sale, neighborhood rummage sale or anything you can come up with to raise money with your neighbors, friends, schoolmates, ect. Anyone can participate and contribute.
Detroit Mommies will be at The Village of Rochester Hills on April 11 during the Recycle 411 event from 12pm-3pm selling popcorn to raise money for Feeding America. We are giving about 4-5 hours of our time to help ease some stress in a child’s life, so they might stop worrying about food and more about how they are going to get an A on their math test.
Disclosure: Detroit Mommies was chosen to participate in the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign and given a stipend for participation. The opinions expressed in this post are mine and mine alone and are not influenced in any way by anyone.
*Statistics found in this post came from the Hunger in Michigan 2010 report
