Just some facts

When children do not receive proper nutrition it effects their physical, behavioral, mental health, their development, and any academic achievements they are meant to have it also weakens their immune system and puts them at risk for diseases and illnesses that could possibly kill them. Children that live in food-insecure households show more signs of difficulty concentrating in school than children who live in food-secure households. When they have difficulty concentrating it leads to repeating a grade, consistently absent, always late, horrible test scores, and they have a problem with being social.

Plant-A-Row for the Hungry program asks anyone when they are planning their garden to just plant one extra row to help out. The Community Gardens are planted in low-income neighborhoods and allows the community to be involved. This program teaches the people how to plan, plant, care for, and harvest a garden. Once people learn how to do this they can start their own and contribute the produce to help out while still having enough to feed their families and themselves.

According to the foodbankonline.org fact sheet there is over 15 million pounds of food distributed in the fiscal year, more than 400,000 individuals were served through the Foodbank, 48% are single parent households, 51% are women, 34% of households that were helped had only one employed adult, 49% of the people served at soup kitchens were employed, 35% are unemployed and lost their job within the last 2 years, 55% were seniors, 27% of the homeless that is served are employed but live in shelters. Other facts are $.32 is what it costs to assemble a full course meal (1= about 3 meals), a $1 donation can distribute up to $6 worth of groceries, $2.14 is what it costs to distribute a meal at the Kids Café (this amount is higher because there is more focus on nutritional content), there has been more than 221 million pounds of food distributed since the Foodbank began in 1981, $.96 of every dollar goes to different programs and services that feed the hungry, 81% of households that are served reported that the food they brought does not last and do not have money for more, 57.3% ate less because they wanted their food to last as long as possible, 46% of the people served reported having to choose between paying their bills or buying food to eat, and of all the partner agencies who participated in Hunger in America approximately 60% reported an increase in services to the hungry.