What are the symptoms of food insecurity? How does the program work? How are donations used? Find answers to these FAQs and more, here.
Eligible children are identified by the guidance counselors and nurses at participating schools as the most “at risk.” There is no set criteria to participate. Volunteers purchase the food, pack the bags, and deliver them to the schools. From there, a school employee delivers the food to the participating students. The children take the food home on Friday afternoon, every week.
Please check out Find Your Community to see if we have a program in your community. If we do not have one in your area, reach out to your trusted school contact to inquire about resources.
100% of every dollar contributed to End 68 Hours of Hunger goes directly to support our providing food for at risk children.
The remaining expenses–bank fees, website hosting, filing fees, solicitation of contributions, reproduction of information for clients, and a myriad of other administrative expenses–are paid by donors who have allocated funds for that purpose, and you can donate funds designated to these purposes as well.
All local programs are completely volunteer!
The way our program works is town by town, one school at a time. Check out How to Start a Program.
School personnel have observed these behaviors in children who are food insecure:
- Hyperactivity
- Aggressiveness
- Irritability
- Anxiety
- Distress
- Passive/aggressive behavior
- Excessive absences
- Repetition of a grade
- Difficulty forming friendships and/or getting along with others
- Physical illnesses, including frequent stomach aches, headaches, and sore throats
- Short attention span or general inability to concentrate
- An example of what might be given to a child:
- A box/bag of nutritional cereal
- Two cans of soup
- One jar of peanut butter or jelly (no glass please)
- One can of tuna or chicken
- Three fruit cups
- One box of crackers
- One box of macaroni and cheese or two packages of Ramen noodles (no cups please)
- Two nutrition bars
If allergies or other dietary restrictions are known, food is adjusted as much as possible to accommodate these special needs.
Every effort is made to spend as little as possible and yet obtain the maximum nutritional value for each child. While fresh fruits and vegetables would be wonderful, this program must rely totally on non-perishable food. We are always conflicted between three competing goals:
- Keeping things healthy
- Keeping things calorie-dense
- Keeping things inexpensive
What we know is that these children need calories first. Unfortunately, healthy food is generally lower in calories; and calorie-for-calorie is more expensive.
We try to keep as healthy as we can using fruit, granola bars, canned tuna and/or chicken, and instant oatmeal.
We ensure there is sufficient protein with peanut butter and canned tuna/chicken, and we keep carbs for the calories and to feed their brains.
We can only use non-perishable food, but we do have donors who donate fresh fruit and vegetables weekly and we use them whenever they are donated, but we don’t buy them because we don’t know how long it might be until they go out to the children.
We do know that obesity is a particular problem in food deserts, where families can only buy food from convenience stores, and can’t get to a major grocery store.
We know that the children need a minimum of 3,000 calories over the weekend, so we ensure that we provide at least that many.
When we are financially able to provide more, we know that they will share the extra food with others in the family.
We welcome suggestions about how you think we can do more with less!
Volunteers never come in contact with the program’s children. The distribution is all done by school personnel and anonymous except this particular school contact.
Become a sponsor!
- Donations of $1,500 or more are acknowledged on our website.
- Donations of $5,000 or more are acknowledged on our letterhead for 12 months and on our website.
- Personal donations are not displayed without the OK of the donor.
