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No milk and cookies waiting
By Jennifer Latzke Everyday when I got home from school there was a plate of cookies and a glass of milk waiting. I'm betting the same was true for most of our readers as well. Well, what do you do when there is nothing waiting for you at home? No milk, no cookies, no supper on the stove--just a long weekend of hunger until school begins again on Monday. It sounds like an extreme, doesn't it? But yet, for many children in the U.S., it is a reality. A recent Associated Press article detailed the plight of some students who are enrolled in government-subsidized breakfast and lunch programs at their schools. According to the story, the teachers of these students began noticing behavioral problems in these children whenever the weekend or a long school break rolled around. Consistently these kids were complaining of illnesses and ailments, or were caught hoarding food from the lunch tables. Some of the younger ones even flat-out cried when the final bell rang on Fridays and it was time for them to go home. Well, what else would you expect from a child facing 48 hours or longer without a meal? For these children, the weekends and school vacations didn't signal freedom and unlimited hours of playtime. And, there were no milk and cookies waiting for them at home. Instead, school breaks signaled a long stretch of hunger. These students weren't just sick--they were starving. Thankfullly, America's Second Harvest, an organization dedicated to using American resources for American citizens, is doing something about it. The volunteers at Second Harvest understood that poverty is a delicate subject. No one wants to swallow their pride and ask for help for their children. And, often, children don't want to be teased because of their situations. Therefore, there has to be a special balance between giving children help, and yet maintaining their dignity. So, teachers and Second Harvest, with support from the Hasbro Children's Foundation, developed a pilot program where school children who are eligible for free and reduced lunch and breakfast programs can pick up backpacks filled with food and toiletry items at the end of the school week. The backpacks look as ordinary as those children carry to school everyday. But, instead of carrying homework, they carry enough non-perishable food items and toiletry articles to help a child survive the bleak weekend until Monday. For some families, the backpacks are all that they have over the weekend. Some children even take two home so that their siblings may have some sort of nourishment over the long 48-hour stretch. Most shocking to me, living in the High Plains, is that of the 24 pilot schools implementing this program, at least one-quarter are located in the nation's rural areas. A few are within the Journal's rural coverage area. As American farmers and ranchers, we can pat ourselves on the back for our efficient production of a safe and plentiful food supply. We feed the world with our leftovers. We spend years creating legislation that will enable us to produce even more food and fiber, and decades creating trade agreements with other nations. Our producers can band together and make things happen. I wonder, though, why we can't spend the same amount of time and energy feeding our neighbors. It bothers me, and it should bother you as well, that a child in Greeley, Colo., or St. Joseph, Mo., or Oklahoma City, Okla., isn't going to be greeted by a plate of cookies and a glass of milk tonight after school. Date: 5/5/04
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