Bags of Hope Program

Hey guys ~ I know that we have been talking, at the clubhouse, about our concern for children that are at risk of going hungry.

After doing some research I found some interesting numbers that I wanted to share. According to Con Agra Foods Foundation, approximately 1 in 5 children in American are at risk of going hungry, which amounts to almost 16 million children.

During the 2009-2010 school year, 20 million children received free or reduced lunches, but only 2.3 million children received meals during the summer of 2009.

This survey said that the weekend, when these kids are not in school is when there is a greater chance of them going hungry. In 2009, 230,000 children participated in a Snack Pack Program (a brown bag of food that gets sent home in their back pack for the weekend). But that isn’t very many!!

One article that I just came across talks about how 2 elementary school teachers — Cheri Loy and Stacy Head started a Bags of Hope program this past November for several children at Lawrenceville Elementary school in Georgia.

They both noticed that some of their students were not eating on the weekend and were running off the bus just to get breakfast on Monday. They found that brown bag programs were starting to pop up all over the place so they just began asking for donations to put their own together.

Cheri and Stacy started with 10 kids that were considered homeless, around Thanksgiving, and they now have 65 bags that are sent with children each weekend.

These women are a great example of seeing a Need, doing something to help and making a difference in their community.

http://lawrenceville-ga.patch.com/articles/local-woman-helps-hungry-gwinnett-children-with-bags-of-hope-19eb304c