This blog is intended to help answer some of the questions you have as well as the ones you haven't even thought to ask, providing you with knowledge about America's hunger problem and specifically how it affects children.
We've also included a section that discusses what you can do to help solve America's hunger problem. It might seem like one person can't make much of an impact on such a widespread struggle, but if you can help even one child living with hunger, you're making a truly important difference.
Let's start here: defining the hunger issue in America. People have been grappling with hunger for centuries upon centuries, but hunger got much worse in America after the recession beginning in 2008 with the financial crisis. Many lost their jobs and houses within just a few weeks, some even days, and many more found themselves unemployed, homeless or both within the next months and years.
The negative effects of the financial crisis also largely impacted lower middle class and impoverished people, making life even more difficult for those who were already struggling to make ends meet. From this, the hunger problem grew and continued to grow.
As of 2015, when widespread surveys were last conducted by Feeding America, 42 million Americans lived in hunger—that's over 13% of the population, or 1 in every 8 people. In 2009, right in the worst part of the recession, 1 in 6 people went hungry.
Now due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, more than 54 million people may experience food insecurity in 2020, including a potential 18 million children.
To define hunger, it is not the urge for a snack or the stomach rumbling before a meal that many feel every day. Hunger is the ongoing inability to eat nutritious food in a quantity that sufficiently sustains an expected level of activity. Simply put, it is not being able to eat enough healthy, nourishing food to provide the energy to go about your day. Because of different levels of activity and different bodies, hunger can be defined differently for each person, but if someone isn't sure when or what they're going to be able to eat next, that can generally be defined as hunger.
It absolutely would seem so, but often the least expensive food is also the least nutritious. Fast foods, processed goods and large-scale manufactured items are almost always the cheapest and least nutritious options, but for those struggling with hunger, a meal made of any of these is better than not eating. This is a very serious problem for families with young children, as nutrition is most important for those growing and developing.
Children are more likely to struggle with hunger than adults, and their hunger also has graver consequences. No one should live with hunger, but children who get less energy and nutrition in their formative years suffer long-term consequences.
While 1 in 8 Americans struggle with hunger, Feeding America has determined that the number for children is 1 in 6. These children are more likely to be hospitalized at a young age, develop conditions like anemia and asthma, have stunted growth and experience other health problems.
Their health isn't the only thing affected, either. Children struggling with hunger are more likely to repeat a year of elementary school, putting them behind their peers, to experience developmental impairments related to speech and motor skills and to have more social and behavioral difficulties.
Because hunger severely impacts children's ability to grow and develop, it impacts the rest of their life.
Childhood hunger in the US isn't concentrated to one area—children live in food-insecure households in almost every American community. But, that does not mean that hunger affects each community equally. Certain areas are much more affected than others.
Many believe that hunger is only an issue in urban communities, but that is far from the truth. Though every urban area in the US struggles with childhood hunger, many rural communities are deeply affected.
The map below shows the areas that struggle most with childhood hunger, many of which have food banks that we are truly honored to partner with. The goal, for That's Caring and for many other organizations dedicated to solving childhood hunger.
Food banks provide much needed nutrition for people struggling with hunger and also organize fundraisers, programs, campaigns and events that all have the same goal: solving hunger in America.
One of the kinds of programs that food banks organize is a weekend bag program, which is the program that That's Caring gifts support. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP), which is funded by the US government, ensures that children are fed at least one nutritious meal every day during the school week. However, it cannot feed them over the weekend. Weekend bag programs send one child from each family struggling with hunger home with a bag full of nutritious food to sustain them and their siblings over the weekend, until they go back to school and receive meals from NSLP. Many food banks across the country run this weekend bag program.
We are incredibly honored to partner with these amazing food banks, and aim to work with more in the coming years:
Believe me, we know what it's like to feel like you can't do anything to help the millions of children living in hunger in America. That exact feeling is part of what started That's Caring. But there are truly so many ways to help.
To get started, you can always donate supplies, money or simply volunteer your time at any of the food banks above or the ones in your community. There is no food bank that will turn down a donation or a volunteer.
If you want to get more people involved, any business or organization can help make a difference. If you want to have an outing, a bonding activity, a family event or something similar, you can do any of the below things and your impact will be felt.
Additionally, you can buy from companies and organizations that are helping solve hunger. That's Caring is not the only organization who recognizes the severity of the hunger problem in America; Half United is another example. You can find all sorts of products for sale whose proceeds go toward solving hunger from various companies. If you shop smart, you can make an impact.
The information in the article comes from Feeding America, and on their website, you'll find some of the most reliable, up-to-date and accurate information about American hunger as well as numerous ways you can help. Again, no matter how small your contribution, if you can make sure that even one meal is provided for a child struggling with hunger, then you're making an impact.
We'd like to thank Feeding America for not only much of the information in this blog, but also for the incredible work they do. You can learn more about them at feedingamerica.org.
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You can make a difference when you shop—I know, it sounds too good to be true. But in the last few decades, ethical fashion brands have become increasingly popular, and lucky for us, increasingly stylish.
These charitable clothing companies are perfect for ethical shoppers and are incredibly stylish, too! Ethical shopping doesn't have to limit what you're buying or the quality of it; there are more and more ethical shopping companies being created and many more ethical fashion brands each year.
We also partner with Miigle+, a company that has created a free, downloadable extension that will show you which brands and products are ethical when you shop online. We highly recommend it, as it helps you discover new products and companies that either offer ethical products or give back to different causes.
Keep reading for ethical fashion brands and the causes they support!
Gives back to: Providing glasses in underprivileged areas
Gives back to: Providing fair wages and safe work in the silk industry
Gives back to: Creating jobs in impoverished communities
Gives back to: Fairly employing women artisans in Rwanda
Gives back to: Supporting cancer patients
Gives back to: Solving childhood hunger
Gives back to:
Gives back to: Providing support to various causes in targeted campaigns
Gives back to: Empowering at-risk women in Northern India
Gives back to: Providing shoes, sight, water and safe births in underprivileged areas
Gives back to: Providing fair wages and educational opportunities to women in India
WATCHES Jane collection
Gives back to: Helping poverty, hunger and breast cancer patients
CHIC BAGS, BACKPACKS & PURSES ESPEROS Soho
Gives back to: Providing education in underprivileged areas
Gives back to: Solving childhood hunger
LEATHER, JEWELRY, ACCESSORIES & BAGS
Gives back to: Helping victims of Rwandan genocide
Gives back to: Providing homeless people with socks
Gives back to: Providing socks for homeless people, impoverished seniors and children
For many of us, we're privileged enough to be able to choose which grocery stores we go to, which clothing brands we buy and even small things like which salad dressing we prefer.
With this privilege of choice comes an opportunity: you can participate in a movement called ethical consumerism and become an ethical shopper.
Ethical consumerism essentially is the idea that you should consider the impact of what you buy on other people. You can think about its effects on the people who made the product, on the economy of that place, on the environment, on animals and others.
Though you might not be able to afford to do this for every product, keeping in mind the harm and good that the things you buy do is one way to make an impact every day.
While there isn't a completely ethical version of every product, there are many ethical products that you can easily substitute for others that are less responsible. In this post, we suggest ethical products you might use every day, like groceries, as well as ethical supermarkets and ethical chain restaurants you can go to.
We also partner with Miigle+, a company that has created a free, downloadable extension that will show you which brands and products are ethical when you shop online. We highly recommend it, as it helps you discover new products and companies that either offer ethical products or give back to different causes.
How They're an Ethical Company: They give 100% of net profits and royalties to their foundation, which supports non-profits around the world.
Ethical Products:
How They're an Ethical Company: Profits from KIND Snacks support the KIND Foundation, a charitable organization that supports social causes.
Ethical Products:
How They're an Ethical Company: They use only fair-trade, fair-wage ingredients and push for GMO labelling. Additionally, they engage in philanthropy through the Ben & Jerry's Foundation.
Ethical Products:
How They're an Ethical Company: They support 12 different causes with different products through the ONEHOPE Foundation.
Ethical Products:
How They're an Ethical Company: They have several different programs and events that give back to their community, and they also promote sustainable farming.
Ethical Products:
The brands below are all a part of Grupo Bimbo, which has specific programs to target different areas of philanthropy and social responsibility. Therefore, they each are ethical and give back through their parent company.
Ethical Products:
Ethical Products:
Ethical Products:
Ethical Products:
Ethical Products:
Kellogg’s and PepsiCo have also been recognized as highly ethical companies by Ethisphere Institute, an independent organization that assesses the ethics of large companies. If you cannot find or afford some of the products we've previously suggested, these two food companies are also a good choice.
There are many other ethical food brands out there, many of which are small, local and sold in only select stores. The supermarkets below not only promote ethical groceries and products, but they also engage in philanthropy and socially responsible programs themselves.
Each of these chain restaurants is engaged in different programs promoting social responsibility, philanthropy and sustainable initiatives. You can learn more about their ethics and charitable work by clicking on the links.
We hope this helps you shop ethically and responsibly! If you know of any other ethical food brands, restaurants or supermarkets we should include, let us know in the comments below.
]]>If you're looking for quotes about hunger that you can share, these hunger quotes are perfect for food drives and other inspiring campaigns.
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When promoting a food drive or organizing one, you might be looking for a saying, slogan or some other inspirational words. If you're starting a donation campaign, volunteering group or even if you just simply want to share some words of inspiration, these quotes about hunger might be what you're looking for.
These quotes put the hunger struggle, both in America and globally, in perspective, attempting to capture the complex problem in one sentence.
We hope these quotes were what you were looking for, whether you wanted inspiration, determination or motivation.
For centuries and centuries, hunger has been a struggle for many. Learn more about our mission to solve childhood hunger here, and see ways to get involved in this blog post.
That's Caring is fortunate enough to partner with these amazing organizations solving childhood hunger. You can learn quick facts about each of our partners here as well as details about the weekend bag programs, which are what proceeds from That's Caring gifts support.
Washington, D.C.
The Capital Area Food Bank creates access to good, healthy food for people in the Washington, D.C. area, helping feed over 540,000 people a year—that's 12% of their community.
With 11 different programs and 444 partner organizations, they are actively creating solutions for the hunger problem in the DC metropolitan area. In 2015 alone, they distributed 44 million pounds of fruits, vegetables and groceries in their community.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
Over 200,000 teens and kids are at risk of hunger in the Washington, D.C. metro area. CAFB established their weekend bag program in 2002 to make sure these kids get a chance to have a nutritious meal and are now serving communities where at least 50% of the children in local schools are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.
Los Angeles, CA
In the Los Angeles area, an estimated 1.4 million people struggle with hunger. Over the last 40 years, LARFB has provided over one billion pounds of food to their clients. In 2016, they distributed 55 million meals—over 62 million pounds of food. They work with over 30,000 volunteers and 625 partners a year to solve hunger in their community.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
One in four kids in LARFB's community struggles with hunger. Their BackPack program reaches these kids and ensures that they are not only sustained during the National School Lunch Program, but also over the summers and weekends. In 2016, LARFB distributed over 33,000 backpacks to children.
Plano, TX
The North Texas Food Bank passionately pursues a hunger-free community, providing 70 million nutritious meals in 2016 alone. Founded in 1992, they've grown to operate in 13 counties and with over 200 partner organizations. Every dollar donated to NTFB provides three meals for people in their community.
They have programs dedicated to feeding different groups in different areas, addressing all those struggling with hunger in North Texas.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
NTFB's weekend bag program is one of the largest we work with. The program operates in 10 counties across North Texas, reaching 365 schools and providing nutritious weekend groceries for 12,000 children every week.
Athens, GA
When they opened in 1992, the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia served 350,000 pounds of food to their community. Now, they serve over 12 million pounds of food a year and partner with 225 organizations.
They've established regional branches and targeted programs to ensure that everyone in their community is receiving the help they need.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
Though they started by feeding 80 students in one county, the food bank BackPack program spread to feed more than 1900 children across their service area every week.
Hillside, NJ
The Community Food Bank of New Jersey provides food and assistance to the entire state, either through their own facilities or in partnership with other agencies and organizations. CFBNJ began when one woman, Kathleen DiChiara, started giving people in need groceries from the trunk of her car.
They have grown to distribute more than 50 million pounds of food every year through their partners and provide 4.7 million meals to their community.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
Every week, CFBNJ provides weekend meals to 1,500 children in 10 cities across New Jersey with shelf-stable, nutritious ingredients that give them the energy to thrive.
Charlotte, NC
SHFBM serves 14 counties in North Carolina and five in South Carolina, partnering with over 700 organizations to distribute food and supplies. More than 527,000 people in their service area struggle with hunger, which is about 18% of their population.
Each year, SHFBM distributes over 50 million pounds of food and other supplies through programs designed to reach those struggling with hunger in their community.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
SHFBM's weekend bag program coordinates with schools to provide some of the 180,000 children in their service area with nutritious, easy-to-prepare weekend meals.
Charleston, NC
Serving the metropolitan areas of Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Yemassee in South Carolina, LCFB provides the 10 coastal counties with food and supplies. In 2016 alone, they distributed over 25 million pounds of food, including 6 million pounds of fresh produce.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
LCFB partners with more than 40 schools to provide hungry children with weekend meal supplies. They distribute over 3,200 backpacks a week, and 75% of parents say that their children showed improved health.
Denver, CO
FBR provides their expansive service area—which includes 30 counties in Colorado and the entire state of Wyoming—with 131,449 meals every day. They partner with 500 partner relief agencies and have facilities of their own in Denver, Wyoming and on the Western Slope.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
Nearly 50% of the people FBR serves are children. Their weekend bag program, called Totes of Hope, provides children in food-insecure households with 8-9 pounds of nutritious food every weekend.
Milwaukee, WI
FAEWI serves nearly 400,000 people in 35 counties, including 124,000 children and 41,000 seniors. They have distrusted over 8, million pounds of fresh produce, dairy and meat donated to them.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
In Wisconsin, 43% of all students qualify for free and reduced school lunches. For many of these children, school meals may be the only meals they eat. Through the FAEWI Backpack Program, they ensure children most in need are getting enough to eat on the weekends so they can return to the classroom on Mondays ready to learn. Each Friday, school personnel pack the weekend staples in normal school backpacks, which provide a discrete way to distribute the food.
Geneva, IL
NIFB provides nutritious food, innovative feeding programs, and hope to neighbors in need across its 13-county service area. In its latest fiscal year, the Food Bank distributed more than 80 million meals, or 220,000 meals daily, and expects the need will continue to rise in the year ahead.
Partnering with over 900 local organizations and facilities, they are able to turn a $1 donation into $8 worth of groceries, getting the most out of every cent they receive to make a truly great impact.
The Food Bank relies on generous donors, volunteers, and community partners who join together with a vision for no one to be hungry in Northern Illinois.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
The Food Bank collaborates with caring adults at 198 schools to identify students and enroll their families in the BackPack Program so that children can be nourished on the weekend and return to school ready to learn without the distraction of hunger.
Their multi-faceted Child Nutrition Program provides more than 1.9 million meals directly to children each year through After School Meals, Summer Meals, the BackPack Program, and the School Pantry Program.
Peoria, IL
PAFB was formed in 1984 to supplement the dietary and nutritional needs of low-income families living in the three surrounding counties of Mason, Peoria, and Tazewell. It provides 80 very active pantries, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters with large quantities of food from name brand manufacturers and USDA commodities on a daily basis. We also operate two mobile food pantries in Mason County and assist eight pantries that provide backpacks to hundreds of children on the weekend.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
Backpack Programs help children get the nutritious food they need on the weekends, when school lunch and breakfast programs aren’t available. The food bank provides food to our partner agencies who operate these programs.
Springfield, IL
CIFB serves a 21-county area that distributes over 9 million pounds of food and 2 million pounds of fresh produce. This is roughly 7.5 million meals provided to those living in food insecurity.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
In partnership with Boys & Girls Club of Central Illinois and Springfield Urban League, CIFB operates Kids Cafe at three locations in Springfield during the school year. During the summer, CIFB also partners with the Springfield Park District, YMCA, and other community sites to offer meals at almost 10 locations.
Urbana, IL
EIFB is the primary food source for food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and other programs working to feed the hungry in 18 eastern Illinois counties covering just over 14,500 square miles. Last year EIF provided 639,000 pounds of food through 53 Food mobiles in rural and under-served areas.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
EIFB’s backpack program provides backpacks full of food for children at risk of weekend hunger. They are delivered directly to students at school through EIF partner agencies, Feeding Our Kids and Food for Kids.
South Bend, IN
Today, nearly 13% of the residents of northern Indiana are food insecure. To help combat hunger in its area, in 2019 FBNI distributed more than 8.8 million pounds of food to its network of 150 member agencies in its six-county service area.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
The FBNI Food 4 Kids Backpack Program is designed for students in grades K-6 and is free to eligible students. Participating schools are identified as having a high rate of children eligible for free/reduced lunch programs. During the 2019-2020 school year, the Food 4 Kids Backpack Program provided weekend food bags to 2,280 students in schools in Elkhart, LaPorte, Marshall, Starke and St. Joseph Counties.
Fort Wayne, IN
CHNEI serves the counties of Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wells, Whitley and feeds over 85,000 unique individuals every year. This equates to over 13.6 million pounds of food distributed annually.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
CHNEI offers a Kids Backpack program that provides weekend food to children who would otherwise go hungry. Teachers and guidance staff refer children in desperate need of weekend meals to the food bank. Once on Kids Backpack, a ten-pound bag is distributed discreetly to each child for the weekend and contains nutritious, kid-friendly foods. Not only is there enough food to feed the referred student, there is enough to feed a hungry sibling as well.
Muncie, IN
SHFBECI has a network of 96 agency partners and 35 schools in Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Henry, Jay, Madison, Randolph and Wabash counties that help them to serve 66,620 people each year. Over 4,300 volunteers help to deliver 8 million pounds of food each year.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
Over 20% of children are food insecure in East Central Indiana. In conjunction with weekend bag programs, SHFBECI has The Big Idea Initiative. The goal is to help raise parent engagement by strengthening the relationships between the school and the families. They turn routine food distributions, filling a need week to week, into an opportunity to connect teachers, parents, and local organizations, helping students create plans and opportunities towards a successful future.
Detroit, MI
Founded in 1977, Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeast Michigan continues to live up to their mission of feeding people and nourishing the community by distributing 45 million pounds of food each year. With a focus on delivering high-quality nutritious groceries, nearly half of all food provided by Gleaners is fresh produce and dairy. In additional to offering a wide range of feeding programs, Gleaners also provides nutrition education to help guests create life-long healthy eating habits.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
Gleaners helps ensure every child receives consistent access to nutritious food. Once school lets out in southeast Michigan, 310,000 students who rely on school meals are at risk of going hungry. Gleaners helps combat childhood hunger by providing students with wholesome food ahead of the weekend and school breaks. Every year, their Backpack program reaches 4,500 children at 70 schools with the highest need throughout the region.
Comstock Park, MI
FAWM distributes millions of pounds of food each year through its partnerships with more than 900 agencies and three distribution organizations including Manna Food Project, Food Rescue and the Western Upper Peninsula Food Bank. In 2018, Feeding America West Michigan distributed 25.1 million pounds of food – equivalent to 21 million meals. Roughly one-third of the food Feeding America West Michigan distributes is fresh produce. The rest of the food is made up of meat, dairy, baked, frozen and non-perishable goods.
Weekend Bag Program Details:
FAWM works with schools to develop weekend meal bag pack programs and school pantry programs. a school pantry can be accessed by older children and families. The pantries are housed in the school building and is accessible to only school families.
We're always looking for more partners and strive to work with a food bank in every state. Have any suggestions? Let us know by commenting below, contacting us or giving us a call at 224-366-5323.
Are you searching for ways to get involved in your community? These ideas for how to get involved in solving the hunger crisis give you a place to start.
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We understand the feeling of wanting to get involved in your community but not knowing how to start—really, we do. While you might have all the motivation to volunteer in your community, you might not have the knowledge about different organizations and the best way to get involved. That's what we're here for! If you’re as passionate about helping food-insecure children as we are, this blog is full of ways to get involved in your community's mission to solve hunger. From different organizations you can join to ways that your everyday decisions can help, there are a million ways to make a difference. Here are some of them!
For almost every community in America, there's a food bank that helps local people struggling with hunger—and they’re always looking for volunteers to make, sort and distribute donations to the hungry people who come in. For just a few hours a day once a month, once a week or whenever you get a chance, you can help food banks stay in operation and reach everyone in need.
How to Get Involved: In this technology-driven time, all you need to do is google "food banks in [city]” to get appropriate contact information. Food banks, like our partners, want to encourage as many volunteers as possible, so they'll make it easy for you to get involved.
This is one of the many easy ways to get involved in your community. You can begin a collection in any organization, whether it's your workplace, place of worship, community center or somewhere else. Simply donate non-perishable goods to be dropped off at a local food bank.
How to Get Involved: Keep your eyes peeled for fliers at popular gathering places in the community or google “food drives in [insert your city name here]” for more local food drives. Or, if you'd like to start your own, contact a food bank near you to begin setting it up.
Soup kitchens are essentially a place where those struggling with hunger can go to escape the weather, meet with others and have a hot meal. If you choose to volunteer at a soup kitchen, you might be preparing food, serving, cleaning, bussing tables, filling water glasses or simply keeping people company.
How to Get Involved: Again, the internet has made it incredibly easy to contact charitable organizations near you. Simply search for "soup kitchens in [city]." If you live in a more rural area, the nearest soup kitchen may be further away, but urban areas often have multiple.
This way to get involved is near and dear to us. Many food banks across America have weekend bag programs that supply children in food-insecure households with supplies for nutritious meals over the weekend, when they aren't being provided food by the National School Lunch Program. That's Caring gifts help fund weekend bag programs across the country, but there's another way you can get involved in them. You can collect food and help pack weekend bags for your local food bank's program.
How to Get Involved: First, we recommend you contact your local food bank. They'll give you any specific rules and information that you need to know. Then, you can follow these steps:
All of the organizations on this list would not only be happy to have your support, but they would also put it to good use and make the maximum impact in the lives of hungry people.
Feeding America is the number one charity in America when it comes to fighting hunger, with more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually. They feed the hungry in America through a nationwide network of more than 200 nationwide (and in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) member food banks that provide assistance to more than 25 million low-income individuals struggling with hunger in the United States. Nine million of those are children, and nearly three million are seniors.
Donations to No Kid Hungry help the organization Share Our Strength recruit summer meal sites, improve and begin school breakfast programs, and teach families how to shop and cook on a budget. Additionally, through grants to help the most innovative hunger-fighting organizations across the country, No Kid Hungry’s partner organizations purchase food and supplies to keep children of food-insecure families from going hungry.
Meals on Wheels Association of America sets its sights on decreasing the prevalence of (and eventually ending) hunger in our senior citizens here in America. The organization delivers meals to people who are unable to purchase or make their own meals, keeping innumerable individuals from suffering from hunger or starvation. Meals on Wheels currently has nearly one million volunteers in all 50 states and the U.S. territories.
Based out of California, Freedom from Hunger has been around since 1946. The organization helps bring sustainable self-help solutions to aid against chronic hunger, combining microfinance with health and education services to allow families with little to no means of income to achieve food security.
Loaves & Fishes sets its sights on helping food-insecure families feed themselves and their dependents for a week at a time through donations of a week’s worth of nutritious groceries. A nonprofit, nondenominational organization, Loaves & Fishes was founded on the efforts of a church in the late 1970s that responded to a growing hunger problem in North Carolina, and it has since expanded to a nationwide movement that provides the hungry with necessary foods.
City Harvest works to help the more than 1.7 million New York citizens currently living in poverty. The organization helps more than a million people each year fight off hunger by rescuing over 126,000 pounds of food per day, which is then donated to more than 500 community programs. With a goal to grow operations addressing the demand for emergency food, City Harvest is well on its way to becoming the go-to organization in the New York City limits and beyond.
You don't have to do it all to make a difference; a few hours of your time or a small donation can make an impact on the lives of people struggling with hunger in your community.
]]>If you've been anywhere on our website or been to a food bank recently, you've likely heard the term food insecurity. And, like many others, you might have wondered what food insecurity is, if it's different than hunger and a number of other questions.
We're here to answer them, because the first step to solving the food insecurity problem in the US is knowing what the problem is. Below you'll find answers to a number of questions as well as an entire section detailing what you can do to make an impact.
To begin, we'll give the textbook definition of food insecurity.
"food insecurity: a measure that describes a household’s inability to consistently provide a sufficient quantity of nutritious food for every person within it to live an active, healthy life."
What food insecurity means in context, though, is whether or not a household has access to enough nutritious food most of the time. Those living in food-insecure households may have enough to eat one month and not the next. They might need to sacrifice eating nutritious food in order to pay medical bills or might sacrifice heating their home in order to feed their family. In the United States currently, 1 in 9 people struggle with hunger (Source: Feeding America).
Whether or not a household is food insecure is a distinction put in place by the government to determine if that household qualifies for various programs that provide them with nutritious food. It is measured by considering income, household size, ages of those in the household, access to charitable food programs and cost of living in their community.
Based on these different factors, the government determines if a household is food insecure and thus if they qualify for federal nutrition assistance. So, while food insecurity can't be given an exact measure, there are different characteristics that can be used to assess a household's level of food security.
The truth is, they're more similar than they are different. Hunger is the ongoing inability to eat enough healthy food; food insecurity measures hunger on the household level. Food insecurity is essentially a term that the government and many organizations use to quantify hunger within a household. If you have more questions, you can learn more about hunger in America in this blog post.
It's a popular idea that any food is good food when you're hungry, but this is simply a myth. While many who are hungry, especially parents with younger children, have to buy unhealthy food when they cannot afford anything else, a diet full of fatty, sugary processed and fast foods is not viable.
Eating these unhealthy foods regularly results in children not getting the nutrients they need to grow and develop, which is why organizations distinguish that a lack of access to nutritious food is a component of both hunger and food insecurity.
We know what it's like to feel like you can't do anything to help the millions of children living in food-insecure households in America—that feeling is why That's Caring was founded. We partner with a number of organizations that have also made it their mission to help those living in food-insecure households.
To get started, you can always donate supplies, money or simply volunteer your time at any of the food banks above or the ones in your community. There is no food bank that will turn down a donation or a volunteer.
If you want to get more people involved, any business or organization can help make a difference. If you want to have an outing, a bonding activity, a family event or something similar, you can do any of the below things and your impact will be felt.
Additionally, you can buy from companies and organizations that are helping solve hunger. That's Caring is not the only organization who recognizes the severity of the hunger problem in America, and you can find all sorts of products for sale whose proceeds go toward solving hunger. If you shop smart, you can make an impact.
The information in the article comes from Feeding America, and on their website, you'll find some of the most reliable, up-to-date and accurate information about food insecurity in America as well as numerous ways you can help. You can also see more ways to get involved in this blog post.
However you choose to help, know that your actions are improving the lives of those struggling with hunger in your community.
We'd like to thank Feeding America for not only much of the information in this blog, but also for the incredible work they do. You can learn more about them at feedingamerica.org.
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If you're wondering how to coordinate volunteers at an event, we've got some tips and tools for organizing volunteers that are sure to help.
]]>If you've got a charity event in mind—whether it's a food drive, weekend bag packing event or something else—you'll likely need to recruit and organize volunteers. We've got some simple tips and tools that will help you coordinate volunteers at your charity event.
(If you're hosting a food drive, you might also be interested in our blog that has a food drive organization checklist and plenty of advice.)
The first step of hosting a volunteering event is to recruit volunteers. Though it can seem like a difficult task, these ideas will help you recruit volunteers in your community:
If you're worried about organizing volunteers at your event—don't be! They chose to participate after all and are dedicated to doing good, so they'll be pretty cooperative and helpful. But, if you're still looking for ideas and advice, look no further:
Technology has made organizing volunteers a lot easier to manage. These websites will help you coordinate your volunteers' schedules and tasks, making your life a lot easier:
We hope that these tips and tools help you coordinate your volunteering events and would like to thank you for getting involved and making a difference! If you have any other suggestions, please comment below! We'd love to share helpful tools with other volunteers and coordinators.
]]>That’s Caring has joined the ranks of several other organizations worldwide to help fight the damaging effects of childhood hunger (see our The Cause tab on our website for more info on just what hunger does to a developing child). Every gift box purchased from our line of high-end gifts donates supplies for weekend bags which are distributed to children in the Chicago area—the fourth highest hunger rate in the USA—living in food-insecure households.
In case this cause means as much to you as it does to us, we wanted to show you a list of organizations helping to win the fight on hunger one purchase and donation at a time, nationally and worldwide.
2. Rise Against Hunger has a vision to stop world hunger. The organization supplies meals packaged by volunteers and including dehydrated, vitamin and mineral-dense soy and vegetable products along with seasonings. The nonperishable items are collected and donated to food pantries and shelters in the Raleigh area, keeping countless food-insecure area citizens from being hungry or malnourished.
3. Feeding America is the number one charity in America when it comes to fighting hunger with more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually. They feed the hungry in America through a nationwide network of more than 200 nationwide (and in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) member food banks that provide assistance to more than 25 million low-income individuals struggling with hunger in the United States. Nine million of those are children, and nearly three million are seniors.
4. The Hunger Project is an organization that partners with local government bodies to make sure that men and women are empowered to end their own hunger. With most of their work occurring in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this group helps people become self-reliant, empowered, and effective when it comes to providing nutrition for themselves as well as their families, friends, and home villages.
5. Action Against Hunger: a company that strives to end world hunger, saving lives by eliminating hunger and hunger issues through preventing, detecting, and treating malnutrition. They are especially concerned with emergency situations of conflict, war, natural disaster, sustainability and crisis response, all aided through expertise in food security, water and sanitation, health, advocacy, and nutrition.
6. Heifer International, with its goal of helping people to become empowered as a means of getting themselves out of their own poverty, focuses its donations in two ways: through livestock—such as cows, chickens, goats, and more—or by funding programs that donate livestock. This sustainable organization trains families in more than 125 countries to improve their quality of life and become self-reliant, both of which help project participants, their families and friends, and their home areas become hunger secure.
7. City Harvest works to help the more than 1.7 million New York citizens currently living in poverty. The organization helps more than a million people each year fight off hunger by rescuing over 126,000 pounds of food per day, which is then donating to more than 500 community programs. With a goal to grow operations addressing the demand for emergency food, City Harvest is well on its way to becoming the go-to organization in the New York city limits and beyond.
8. Kids Against Hunger works hard to feed families and children worldwide. The organization’s mission states that they aim to reduce the number of hungry children in the US and throughout the rest of the world, shipping meals to starving children and families in over 60 countries and partnering with humanitarian organizations to help end world hunger for good.
9. Bread for the World Institute is a faith-based organization that educates advocacy network, opinion leaders, policy makers and the public about hunger in the US and worldwide. They generate studies on hunger, provide educational resources, and help to empower people with information so that they can affect real progress and real change toward ending hunger worldwide.
10. Based out of California, Freedom from Hunger has been around since 1946. The organization helps bring sustainable self-help solutions to aid against chronic hunger, combining microfinance with health and education services to allow families with little to no means of income achieve food security.
11. Loaves & Fishes sets its sights on helping food-insecure families feed themselves and their dependents for a week at a time through donations of a week’s worth of nutritious groceries. A nonprofit, nondenominational organization, Loaves & Fishes was on the efforts of a church in the late 1970’s that responded to a growing hunger problem in North Carolina, and has since expanded to a nationwide movement that provides the hungry with necessary foods.
12. Food for the Hungry seeks to end ALL forms of human poverty by going to the hard places and walking with the world’s most vulnerable people. They partner with community leaders and families in over 20 countries across the globe to lift the burden of extreme poverty by providing life-changing resources such as clean water, medical aid, food, equal educational opportunities to girls and boys, and vocational training.
Food Insecure Household—consistent condition reported by households with very low food security or access to money and other nutrition resources (USDA Economic Research Service)
Food Security—when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life (World Health Organization)
Hunger—the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite. Also, the exhausted condition caused by want of food. The want or scarcity of food in a country. A strong desire or craving (Oxford English Dictionary)
Malnutrition—also known as “undernutrition,” referring to a lack of some or all nutritional elements necessary for human health (Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia)
Micronutrient Deficiency—a lack of vitamins and minerals in the body (worldhunger.org)
Nutrition—the act or process of nourishing or being nourished; specifically, the sum of the processes by which an animal or plant takes in and utilizes food substances (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
Poverty—the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions; also, a debility due to malnutrition (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
Protein-energy Malnutrition—a lack of calories and protein in the body (worldhunger.org)
Starvation—suffering or death caused by having nothing to eat or not having enough to eat (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
Subsidized Lunch—lunch acquired with support or assistance of an outside grant
Vulnerability—capable of being physically or emotionally wounded (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
World Hunger—the want or scarcity of food in a country aggregated to the world level (World Hunger website worldhunger.org)
]]>What are food banks doing during the COVID-19 outbreak?
Feeding America and food banks across the country continue to mobilize their response to the pandemic, as they deploy new distributions, many of which are drive-through and outdoor, to maximize social distancing. They are distributing emergency food boxes, working with school districts and after-school programs to offer grab-and-go cold meals for children and families to help fill the gap while schools are closed.
How can you help?
Links to Our Food Bank Partners Response to COVID-19
To view where and how much has been donated in the past, click here.
Bottom line, food bank programs are changing the lives of those in need during this global pandemic and every little bit helps. Thank you.
]]>One really incredible way to help hunger in your community is to organize a food drive, and we're here to teach you how!
Though you might be intimidated by the thought of organizing a food drive, it can be quite simple! All you need to do is follow a simple checklist—which we've created below—and you're sure to be successful.
Food drives work best in groups with some sort of structure or schedule, like at an office, a church group, or a neighborhood.
Remember, even if you only collect ten items in your food drive, those ten items will make a difference in the life of someone struggling with hunger. Food drives don't need to be record-breaking to be successful; they just have to help one person living with hunger in your community.
Below we've included a checklist that includes each step in organizing a food drive. With that checklist, we've provided details of each step, making sure that we give you the most help possible to make a difference in your community.
This is the first and easiest step! Simply decide when the best time is based on the business of your organization. You can choose a week, a month or even just a day—whatever you think is likely to work best. Keep in mind that longer food drives mean you would have to collect and donate more regularly so that the food donated would not expire.
You may want to keep in mind that summer is the hungriest season, particularly for children. Another note: holiday season is often the most popular time for giving and food drives, so the need that food banks have is not that high. However, if that is the only time that works for you, we encourage you to still host a food drive—there is no wrong time to help feed hungry people in your community.
Once you've decided when you're hosting a food drive, you should next determine who you're working with.
Food pantries, food banks and soup kitchens are almost always eager to accept donations and help you organize your food drive. Each is slightly different, so you might want to research several organizations before choosing one.
Additionally, some community centers, places of worship and schools run their own programs to collect donations and distribute them to those in need. Depending on where you live, these local organizations might be a better partner for your food drive.
If you're not sure where to donate, Feeding America has a directory where you can find your local food bank.
Some charitable organizations, especially food banks, will have specific requirements for what you can and cannot donate. They usually aren't very impactful, but you'll want to make sure that you know the guidelines. For example, some food banks don't accept glass jars or sugar-sweetened beverages; you can see an example here.
This is one of the most important decisions, but it can be quite easy. Here are some questions to ask yourself about the best method to collect food for your food drive:
Based on your answers to these questions, here are some ideas for how to collect:
Next, determine if you need help from volunteers as well as what you need help with. You might want help with collection, promotion, organization or simply just another person to help you think things through. When in doubt, ask for more help than you need, as you don't want to leave yourself with too much responsibility, and people are always willing to help their community.
Once you've got an idea of how many volunteers you need and what you need them to do, ask friends, family, neighbors, coworkers and anyone else you know. If you're struggling to find enough available people, you can post information at the organization you're donating to and people who volunteer there might be interested.
You can do this step a thousand different ways, and you can never promote your food drive too much. If it's a food drive that the whole community can get involved in, create flyers and post them at all sorts of public spaces, like:
You can also do some minor social media promotion, such as creating a personal post and asking community members to share it, creating a Facebook event, asking local community leaders to post about it and more.
If you're hosting a food drive at your office, you can send out an email to the office mailing list and post more information in the break room.
Some food banks have resource pages, like this one, that provide resources and advice on hosting a food drive for them.
Though we won't know exactly what you need, these are some common materials that are needed for food drives:
There isn't much else to say about this step, other than we wish you the best of luck!
Once you've passed your donations on to the organization you coordinated with, there isn't much else to do! You can create a flyer with the amount of donations received, other food drive recap details and a thank you to the community in the same places you posted the original flyer. Also, you can send thank you notes and small gifts to volunteers.
We hope that this checklist helps you organize a food drive, and we sincerely thank you for taking the time and effort to help solve hunger in your community.
You can read more here about That's Caring's mission to Give Happiness and Help Hunger.
]]>Food is necessary for surviving and thriving. These 10 food quotes celebrate an essential part of life.
]]>Food is an integral part of life, both physically and spiritually. For those of us privileged enough to have regular access to food—and especially our favorite foods—it is a truly important aspect of our culture and identity.
These quotes about food celebrate how incredible it is, how much it matters to us and remind us how fortunate we are to have it.
Food is an essential part of life: it both sustains us and excites us. At That's Caring, we celebrate food and make sure that everyone gets the chance to enjoy it.
Do you have any quotes about food that resonate with you? Share them with us in the comments below!
While we've talked a lot about hunger, food insecurity and related topics before, sometimes you really can't understand the scope of hunger until you see the facts.
With that in mind, we've collected 10 striking facts about hunger. Each of these statistics puts in perspective the real scale of the hunger struggle and how important it is that we do something to make sure that no one goes hungry.
What this means: 13.1 million is greater than the population of New York City and LA combined. That many children across the US are unsure when their next meal is going to be and what it's going to be.
What this means: Can you imagine skipping eight or more meals? That's what the math breaks down to. Eight times a month, when your stomach is empty and you're hungry, you have to wait and go without. That's the reality for many in America.
What this means: The vast majority of food-insecure households are relying on processed, sugary foods with very little nutritional value to sustain them because that is all they can afford. Without essential nutrients, they lack energy and health to live a full life.
What this means: Those who go hungry do not have the means to grow their own food or to purchase it. This is, in many cases, due to poor treatment of farmers, unfair wages and other factors outside of the control of those who go hungry.
What this means: Despite not having enough money to purchase enough healthy food to survive, 1 out of 4 people living in food insecurity does not receive the federal help that they need.
What this means: More than half of the over 46 million people Feeding America serves have to choose between the possibility of being homeless and being hungry.
What this means: Most rural areas in the US are involved in food production in some way or another, from ranching to farming. About 1 out of every 7 rural households, many of which provide the rest of the country with food, struggles to get enough to eat.
What this means: Hunger disproportionately affects African American people. Because of systemic disadvantages, higher rates of poverty and other factors, more African American people struggle with hunger.
What this means: For food-insecure people, federal assistance is incredibly important and can be the difference between going hungry and getting the food necessary to survive. Many Latinos are not considered for these federal programs and cannot get the help they need.
What this means: As more and more people from the Baby Boomer generation can no longer work a full-time, livable wage job, they face struggling with hunger. After working for their entire adult lives, they still might not be able to ensure that they can eat.
These facts are sad, disheartening and in many cases angering, but they paint a clear picture of the hunger struggle in the US. Remember, though, that if these facts upset or bother you, you can make a difference. You can even start now with these ways to make an impact.
The information in this blog comes from Feeding America, whom we are always grateful to for their data and the incredible work that they do.
]]>
The Capital Area Food Bank creates access to good, healthy food for people in the Washington, D.C. area, helping feed over 540,000 people a year—that's 12% of their community.
With 11 different programs and 444 partner organizations, they are actively creating solutions for the hunger problem in the DC metropolitan area. In 2015 alone, they distributed 44 million pounds of fruits, vegetables and groceries in their community.
Backpack Details:
Over 200,000 teens and kids are at risk of hunger in the Washington, D.C. metro area. CAFB established their weekend bag program in 2002 to make sure these kids get a chance to have a nutritious meal and are now serving communities where at least 50% of the children in local schools are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.
Over 38 years serving their community, GFBSM has truly lived up to their goal of not only feeding the hungry, but also nourishing the community. By collecting over 39 million pounds of food a year, they can provide the Detroit area with 89,000 meals every day.
They have programs targeting different victims of hunger and host numerous events to gather community support each year.
Backpack Program Details:
GFBSM wants to ensure that the almost 300,000 kids who rely on meals provided by the school are fed outside of school programs. Their BackPack program supplies kids with nonperishable food items that will sustain them throughout the weekend.
In the Los Angeles area, an estimated 1.4 million people struggle with hunger. Over the last 40 years, LARFB has provided over one billion pounds of food to their clients. In 2016, they distributed 55 million meals—over 62 million pounds of food. They work with over 30,000 volunteers and 625 partners a year to solve hunger in their community.
Backpack Program Details:
One in four kids in LARFB's community struggles with hunger. Their BackPack program reaches these kids and ensures that they are not only sustained during the National School Lunch Program, but also over the summers and weekends. In 2016, LARFB distributed over 33,000 backpacks to children.
The North Texas Food Bank passionately pursues a hunger-free community, providing 70 million nutritious meals in 2016 alone. Founded in 1992, they've grown to operate in 13 counties and with over 200 partner organizations. Every dollar donated to NTFB provides three meals for people in their community.
They have programs dedicated to feeding different groups in different areas, addressing all those struggling with hunger in North Texas.
Backpack Program Details:
NTFB's weekend bag program is one of the largest we work with. The program operates in 10 counties across North Texas, reaching 365 schools and providing nutritious weekend groceries for 12,000 children every week.
NIFB was established in 1983 to serve the communities in Northern Illinois and around Chicago as the city had—and still has—many of its own programs and organizations, but there were many hungry people living in the surrounding counties.
They have thrived ever since, feeding 71,500 people each week across 13 counties.
Partnering with 800 local organizations and facilities, they are able to turn a $1 donation into $8 worth of groceries, getting the most out of every cent they receive to make a truly great impact.
Backpack Program Details:
NIFB's BackPack program completes a full week of nutrition for children in their 13-county service area. They also have a Summer Meal Program that served over 285,000 meals in the summer of 2016 alone.
When they opened in 1992, the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia served 350,000 pounds of food to their community. Now, they serve over 12 million pounds of food a year and partner with 225 organizations.
They've established regional branches and targeted programs to ensure that everyone in their community is receiving the help they need.
Backpack Program Details:
Though they started by feeding 80 students in one county, the food bank BackPack program spread to feed more than 1900 children across their service area every week.
The Community Food Bank of New Jersey provides food and assistance to the entire state, either through their own facilities or in partnership with other agencies and organizations. CFBNJ began when one woman, Kathleen DiChiara, started giving people in need groceries from the trunk of her car.
They have grown to distribute more than 50 million pounds of food every year through their partners and provide 4.7 million meals to their community.
Backpack Program Details:
Every week, CFBNJ provides weekend meals to 1,500 children in 10 cities across New Jersey with shelf-stable, nutritious ingredients that give them the energy to thrive.
SHFBM serves 14 counties in North Carolina and five in South Carolina, partnering with over 700 organizations to distribute food and supplies. More than 527,000 people in their service area struggle with hunger, which is about 18% of their population.
Each year, SHFBM distributes over 50 million pounds of food and other supplies through programs designed to reach those struggling with hunger in their community.
Backpack Program Details:
SHFBM's weekend bag program coordinates with schools to provide some of the 180,000 children in their service area with nutritious, easy-to-prepare weekend meals.
Serving the metropolitan areas of Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Yemassee in South Carolina, LCFB provides the 10 coastal counties with food and supplies. In 2016 alone, they distributed over 25 million pounds of food, including 6 million pounds of fresh produce.
Backpack Program Details:
LCFB partners with more than 40 schools to provide hungry children with weekend meal supplies. They distribute over 3,200 backpacks a week, and 75% of parents say that their children showed improved health.
FBR provides their expansive service area—which includes 30 counties in Colorado and the entire state of Wyoming—with 131,449 meals every day. They partner with 500 partner relief agencies and have facilities of their own in Denver, Wyoming and on the Western Slope.
Backpack Program Details:
Nearly 50% of the people FBR serves are children. Their weekend bag program, called Totes of Hope, provides children in food-insecure households with 8-9 pounds of nutritious food every weekend.
GBFB serves the entirety of the Boston area and Eastern Massachusetts and feeds over 140,000 people every month. In the last few years, GBFB has been providing more than 57.7 million pounds of food in 190 Massachusetts cities each year.
From GBFB's establishment in 1974 to 2015, they provided their community with over 600 million pounds of nutritious food.
Backpack Program Details:
Through school food pantries, where children and their parents can go to fill bags with groceries for the weekend and evenings, GBFB helps in nine schools that struggle most with hunger. Their school pantries feature nutritious, shelf-stable and culturally diverse foods.
We're always looking for more partners and strive to work with a food bank in every state. Have any suggestions? Let us know by commenting below, contacting us or giving us a call at 224-366-5323.
]]>Established by Feeding America in 2008, Hunger Action Month is a nationwide initiative designed to mobilize you to take action against hunger. At That's Caring, we challenge you to take part in our mission to solve childhood hunger with the 30-Day Hunger Action Challenge.
The month has been divided into five-day campaigns that target helping and providing awareness for one of six specific aspects of American hunger: nutrition, activity, ethical shopping, volunteering and compromising.
Our 30-Day Hunger Action Challenge specifically educates both participants and observers about these five elements of hunger. Some days, our challenge is for you to simply vote in a Facebook poll or post on Instagram; at other times, we encourage you to budget or shop ethically for five days in a row.
We challenge you to do one thing every day to raise awareness and help the hunger struggle in your community. Here's our 30-Day Hunger Action Challenge—if you participate, make sure to let us know by tagging @ThatsCaring and using the hashtag #30dayhungerchallenge. Ready, set, go!
Day 1: Instagram: Post a picture of an activity you need energy to do.
Day 2: Volunteering: Volunteer at a food pantry.
Day 3: Twitter: Participate in our poll and ask your followers the same question.
Day 4: Ethical Shopping: Buy an ethical alternative for your groceries.
Day 5: Instagram: Post a picture of a balanced meal you made/ate.
Day 6: Twitter: Participate in our poll and ask your followers the same question.
Day 7: Volunteering: Volunteer with a coworker.
Day 8: Ethical Shopping: Buy a one-for-one product that gives back to a hunger related cause.
Day 9: Twitter: Participate in our poll and ask your followers the same question.
Day 10: Instagram: Post a picture of a product/gift that gives back
Days 11-15: Budget & Donate: For these five days, we challenge you to live on a budget. Take a look at your usual weekday expenses and set a daily spending limit for yourself that you cannot go over. The median income of a food-insecure household is $9,175, or about $176 for all weekly expenses, including food. This will give you some perspective on what it's like to live in a household that has to compromise expenses. Additionally, whatever money from your budget you don't spend can be donated to a local food bank or Feeding America to help hunger.
Day 16: Volunteering: Volunteer at a child care facility or work with children at a food pantry.
Day 17: Ethical Shopping: Eat at an ethical chain restaurant.
Day 18: Twitter: Participate in our poll and ask your followers the same question.
Day 19: Ethical Shopping: Shop at an ethical store.
Day 20: Volunteering: Volunteer with a friend.
Day 21: Instagram: Post a picture of yourself volunteering.
Day 22: Ethical Shopping: Give a gift that gives back.
Day 23: Volunteering: Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
Day 24: Twitter: Participate in our poll and ask your followers the same question.
Days 25-29: Food Drive: We challenge you to host a flash food drive! For five days at the end of September, host a food drive at your office, community center, place of worship or just at popular spots in your area, like the grocery store. If you're intimidated by this challenge, don't worry—we've got a comprehensive guide to hosting a food drive here.
Day 30: Instagram: Post a picture of you as a child captioned with your takeaways from the past 30 days.
This September, join us on our mission to solve childhood hunger and participate in our 30-Day Hunger Action Challenge. Share your challenge progress with us on social media by tagging @ThatsCaring and using the hashtag #30dayhungerchallenge—we can't wait to see your good work!
]]>
How often do you actually go out of your way to help others?
It's obviously a powerful habit. Helping others can change the lives of those you help while adding meaning and depth to your own life.
It's a win-win that's dead simple in theory.
We know that any kind gesture—no matter how seemingly trivial, from smiling at a stranger to listening to a friend—adds a little bit of positivity to the world. And we know that if we all did our best to help others, the cumulative effect of our small actions would create a different world from the one we live in today.
Unfortunately, simple ≠ easy. Even though we know these ideas to be true we don't often act on them.
Why? Why do we frequently skip doing nice things that can add so much value at no cost to us?
One possible explanation is that ego helping others feel difficult even if it's not. Helping others often requires us to go out on a limb, to let people see how much we really care, to open ourselves to the possibility of rejection, which threatens our sense of security. When our security is threatened, we don't do new things and we don't do things for others, instead we focus on ourselves.
Fortunately, once you recognize what's getting in the way, you can break down the barriers and start to making helping others a habit.
Here are the mental tricks that help me to the right thing more often, and a few ideas on how you can start helping others today.
Giving to charity is a great way to help those in need.
What's even better? Putting your giving on auto-pilot, so it happens automatically every month. That way, you can't forget and don't have the chance to come up with an excuse (like I did for years).
Many nonprofits, like charity: water offer a way to donate on an automatic, monthly basis.
To make an even bigger impact every month, you might try CharityX. CharityX helps you make your impact, grow it and track it, all in one place. In a matter of months you could be making an impact beyond what you ever thought possible.
Someone has to go first.
Someone has to be the first to smile. To say hello. To give. To do the right thing. To help.
If you've read this far it means you care. Caring is essential but it's the easy—well, easier—part. The hard part is taking action. Taking action is hard because that's when we open ourselves up to the possibility of rejection.
What if they don't say hi back?
What if I startle the homeless person?
What if someone I know sees that I care?
But if you face your fear and take action, you unlock one of the keys to deeper hapiness. And once you experience a taste of this happiness, it makes it easier to take action the next time.
This is the first and most important you need to know about helping others: it's worth it, no matter how big or small the gesture.
But you have to lead the way.
To me, helping others is a deeply personal choice.
It's about doing the right thing simply because it's the right thing to do. It's about growth, and connection, and feeling, and love.
It's definitely not about showing off on Facebook or even telling your friends. In fact, I seem to get a lot more out of helping when I don't tell anyone at all.
Watch this video and you'll see what I mean.
One of the most exciting trends in giving is the influx of social-impact businesses, popularized by Tom's Shoes and others using the one-for-one model.
Today, you can buy almost any product and contribute to a great cause at the same time. Like:
Not sure how to start helping others? Start by doing the right thing every chance you get; it almost always benefits others. And chances to do the right thing appear many times a day.
Do I pick up that litter? But it's not mine!
Denise looks sad today, maybe I should say hi to her.
Another 5k for charity? But I've already donated to five of these this year.
Doing the right thing might take a little more effort, but it is always worth it.
Be the first!
A habit starts with one decision, and one action, so take action today. Do something nice for someone or start giving to charity. Remember, any time you're doing the right thing, you're helping others. No gesture is too small; everything matters. Take this quote about helping others from Winston Churchill with you:
“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”
And thank you for reading my post.
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About: The Northern Illinois Food Bank (NIFB) leads its community in solving hunger by providing nutritious meals to those in need through innovative programs and partnerships. Started in 1983 with the idea to feed the community, they have thrived ever since, feeding 71,000 people in 13 counties through their 800 partners as of last year. Remarkably, they’ve figured out how to stretch a $1 donation to purchase $8 worth of groceries. Their fight to end hunger is rooted in being a helping hand for their neighborhood.
Backpack Program: NIFB has a backpack program that helps to put backpacks full of nutritious meals into the hands of children every Friday for a weekend of meals.
Education: By hosting multiple events, from the Foodie 5K to A Taste That Matters, Culinary event, the NIFB brings awareness to the importance of finding different ways to end hunger. The NIFB also partner’s with local senior housing units to provide monthly meals while keeping dietary needs in mind through the Senior Food Program.
More about our impact with the Northern Illinois Food Bank.
About: The Capital Area Food Bank creates access to good, healthy food for people in the Washington D.C. area. They believe that nutritious food is a basic human right, and they are critical to the health and wellbeing of their community members, distributing over 35 million meals a year.
Backpack Program: With over 200,000 teens and kids at risk of hunger in the Washington D.C. area, Capital Area Food Bank provides weekend meals for youth by working with 64 schools and churches. On a daily basis, the Kids Café allows free, healthy meals for youth daily afterschool at 90 different locations. During the summer months, an old converted school bus supplies over 300 meals Monday through Friday.
Education: Capital Area Food Bank goes beyond just supplying healthy food to those in need. They also work to educate through nine different programs including Cooking Matters and their own unique program, Face Hunger.
More about our impact with the Capital Area Food Bank.
]]>About: Since their start in 1992, the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia (FBNG) has made over 79 million meals, committed to their mission of alleviating poverty and helping the hungry. In 2013 alone, they made 9 million meals, thanks to their supportive community and absolute dedication to the cause.
Backpack Program: The FBNG found that school wasn’t just for learning for the youth in the community, for some it was kids only source of food. They created a program called Food 2 Kids to alleviate the worry about food on nights and weekends. Students go home with a bag of snacks and meals that require no cooking and nutritious. This is the only program at FBNG that relies on monetary donations as food is purchased to ensure food is nutritional, child friendly, and balanced to support growing children.
Education: The FBNG helps to bring awareness through different events along with volunteer opportunities. They offer the community to old their own food drives and compete in fun competitions such as the Hunger Bowl.
More about our impact with the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia.
]]>About: For over 38 years, Gleaners Food Bank of Southern Michigan has been focused on the entire community of southeast Michigan to help end hunger by providing nutritional , high quality food to its clients. GFBSM partners with Citizens Bank, who matches every donated dollar the food bank receives. This is a major contribution as GFBSM purchased 38% of the food they give to the hungry.
Backpack Program: The GFBSM has a backpack program that provides nutritious bags of food for local students who are on free or reduced lunch and who would otherwise not have food for the weekend. They also have a program called Smartbites, which provides schools with nutritious snacks for teachers to pass out to students who may be hungry throughout the school day or in afterschool tutoring programs.
Education: In 2013, Gleaners adopted a three-year strategy to continue the reduction of hunger in southeast Michigan by promoting self-sufficiency through education and access. They’ve come to the realization that hunger cannot be solved simply by feeding the hungry, but by educating people in budgeting, cooking and taking advantage of resources.
More about our impact with the Gleaners Food Bank of Southern Michigan.
]]>About: The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank mobilizes resources to fight hunger, and they strive for their vision of no person going hungry in Los Angeles County. Over the last 40 years, they have provided over 1 billion pounds of food to their clients with over 31,000 volunteers. Out of their 1 million recipients, nearly a quarter are children under 18.
Backpack Program: Los Angeles Regional Food Bank participates in a backpack program that gives 825 children a backpack filled with six meals every Friday, enough to feed them for the weekend. Since the program began in 2006, their efforts have created a healthier community, and they are now working to expand it. They also have a Kids Café program that helps significantly in the summer months providing meals and snacks for over 6,000 children.
Education: They provide both nutritional education and health education services to children, teens adults and seniors. They put an emphasis on importance of healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices by using their resources to create meals and spread the knowledge, fighting to end hunger in their community.
More about our impact with the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.
]]>About: The North Texas Food Bank passionately pursues a hunger-free community, providing 62 million nutritious meals in the last year alone. Out of every dollar they receive, 93 cents goes to hunger relief programs. They have 250 partner agencies over 1,000 locations throughout their 12-county service area, and they remain dedicated to helping every individual in need within their vast community.
Backpack Program: The North Texas Food Bank’s program, Food 4 Kids, gives a backpack full of food for the weekend to over 11,000 chronically hungry children every Friday. They also have a Kids Café that provides 1,600 students after school meals, and it keeps going through the summer with lunch and snacks for over 2,400 children.
Education: The North Texas Food Bank knows that education is a critical way to help prevent hunger. They provided 25 six-week courses in 2014 with 508 participants learning about nutrition, budgeting, safety and cooking. The North Texas Food Bank Hunger Center is a program committed to building knowledge as a way to end hunger through research and development of new strategies.
More about our impact with the North Texas Food Bank.
]]>Without your support, none of this would be possible, so we thank you for your patronage. The purchase of one gift feeds a child for a weekend, giving them meals when they can’t rely on school lunches and programs.Over 29 weekends, That’s Caring provided 15,281 meals for children across the United States through our food bank partners.
We hope to match this success, if not improve upon it, in the remainder of 2015 and for many years to come.
Our sincerest thanks,
]]>How would your participation or monetary contributions help those in need? The Northern Illinois Food Bank works to help solve hunger by providing nutritious meals to those in need. This is done through partnerships with other like-minded organizations.
For every $1 donated, theNorthern Illinois Food Bank provides $8 worth the groceries. Your donations are multiplied eight-fold, making even the smallest donation beyond relevant.
We had so much fun last year, that we’ve got a That’s Caring team running this year’s 5K! Join us or start a team of your own.
For more information about That’s Caring and its one-for-one model providing non-perishable food items to hungry children in the Northern Illinois area, visit www.thatscaring.com.
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