Did you know hundreds of children in Big Spring do not have enough to eat from the time they leave school on Friday until they return to school and receive the school provided breakfast on Monday morning? You may be asking "Here in Big Spring?" Yes, here in Big Spring and throughout Texas and the United States. One in four children in Texas is food insecure and one in seven children in the United States is food insecure. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), this means that at times during the year, these individuals live in households that are uncertain of having or are unable to acquire enough food to meet the needs of all their family members because they have insufficient money or other resources for food. Food insecurity can increase chances of asthma and cognitive & behavioral development. As children grow and develop nutrition and access to healthy food choices is key.
As Jeremy K. Everett said in I WAS HUNGRY "I believe hunger is the harshest form of poverty. Hunger is debilitating. It stimulates physical pain, anger, lethargy, and depression. It will keep you up at night and ironically cause you drowsiness during the day. I can only imagine the shame and humiliation parents experience when their children miss meals.
Regretfully, 39.7 million people in the US live in poverty, 12.8 million of them are children and 4.7 million are senior adults; 12.9 million children live in food-insecure households; and every county in the US has reported food insecurity among a percentage of it's population."
The Howard County (the city of Big Spring is part of Howard County) Child Poverty Rate is listed at 23% at countyhealthranking.org. Howard County's average per capita income is about 40% below the state average. Underemployment is the #1 cause of poverty and hunger. Many families in Big Spring have to choose between paying rent, paying for a car, paying for medicine or paying for food. This is where Food 2 Kids Big Spring can help - we provide a WEEKEND food sack for children that may not receive a regular meal from the school provided lunch on Friday to the school provided breakfast on Monday morning. Working with the local school district, children are identified by classroom teachers, administrators or school counselors as food insecure. The local school district provides Food 2 Kids with the number of students (we never know the student name - we are only given the number of food sacks needed per campus) that may need a food sack for the weekend and we deliver the appropriate number of food sacks to each campus to be distributed by the classroom teachers on Thursday or Friday afternoons. Our program ensures that these students will have food over the weekend until they return to school Monday morning for the school provided breakfast.
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