One hungry child is one too many. Over a hundred of them should be a wake-up call to the growing problem that has now reared its head right here at home, in our own backyards.
In a place like Sampson, where many of us grow fruits, vegetables and livestock that helps feed the world, we have children, dozens of them, it seems, who don’t get a nutritious meal beyond the ones provided to them during the week, when they are attending school.
At our public schools, breakfast and lunch are provided, meaning every child has a chance at a hot meal whether they have the money to afford it or not.
But on the weekends, they aren’t so lucky.
Often raised by grandparents, aunts or uncles or, sadly, simply left to their own devices from Friday night until they return to the classroom on Monday, many children have no meal waiting for them when supper time rolls around. They don’t wake up to breakfast cooking in their kitchens and they don’t have a mom or dad waiting to carry them out for pancakes or a hearty ham or sausage biscuit. There aren’t Pop Tarts or cereal in the cabinet nor milk in the fridge. Instead their are empty tummies, eager to be filled, but left wanting.
We first started noticing the problems when churches, like First Methodist here in Clinton, and civic organizations, like both Rotary Clubs, began the now well-known Backpack Buddies program, which feeds hundreds of K-5 children who, each Friday, can grab a backpack laden with non-perishable items and snack foods that provide them the nourishment they, otherwise, wouldn’t have each weekend.
That program has blossomed thanks to carrying individuals from churches and civic groups across Sampson.
But it seems it is no longer enough. Now, those who carried the backpacks home in the first years of the program are in middle or high school. They grew up, but the hunger problem didn’t fade. In fact, it has grown exponentially over the course of the last few years.
Because of the hunger growth, schools in both the city and county offer food pantries, a place where middle-schoolers and teens can go on Friday afternoon — or anytime they need something — to load up on staple items that will keep them fed until they return to school on Monday mornings.
The pantries help, but more and more food is needed to stock the shelves that are emptying at a rapid pace.
It serves to show our county’s hunger problems are growing more pronounced like the rumblings of a growling stomach.
We applaud every single person, every single civic club and church that has taken the time and effort — and spent the money — to stock the pantries and help fill the backpacks. It is the Lord’s work in action, on full display.
But it is the problem, itself, that should give us pause. We should be troubled by the fact that even one youngster is hungry, and we should all want to do something to right that wrong. The pantries help, but there’s something unnerving about a hunger problem, particularly in a county like ours which produces so much food.
The root of the problem is far deeper than the pantries, alone, can fix. It’s systemic and it deserves attention, even more than we currently give it.
Just as many teen girls here are experiencing what is being called “period poverty,” because they or their parents cannot afford the sanitary items needed when young girls become women, hunger among children and youth is something we must accept as a community problem, not just a family one.
While we know it won’t be fixed over night, all of us who can should make it a priority to ensure children aren’t hungry. It seems the very least we can do.