I did the math, and it makes my heart sad.
There were 50,641 households in 2010 in the county in which I live, made up of a total of 131,642 people. (I did the research.) Of those 50, 641 households, 31.1%, roughly 15,749 households, contain children under the age of 18. 25.9 % of the county's population, about 34,095 in total, were age 19 and under. That's an average of 2.2 children per house in a household, in the households that have children.
In 2010, 6,055 of the households in my county were food stamps recipients. People, that's 12% of the households. Of those households, 50.2% had children under 18. Let's pretend, just for a minute, each of the families with children who receive food stamps have exactly 2.2 children, the county average. What that would mean is that approximately 6687 children, in MY county...in MY neighborhood...have meals subsidized by food stamps!
Six thousand, six hundred, eighty-seven children in MY backyard are "food insecure," and probably even more!
What's more, there are tons more kids, I'm sure, in my neighborhood, in my county, in this country, who either don't have access to nutritious foods, either by chance, by choice, or by lack of education! That breaks my heart. Kids, whether they have food available or not, are starving - starving! - because what they are putting into their bodies isn't healthy!
I can't find any solid evidence to tell me what the childhood obesity rates are in my county, but I'm sure they're high. Why am I sure? Because the national adult obesity rate is currently (in 2011) is 25%, and in my county that rate is a soaring 32%! People, a third of the adults in my county are obese, and I can just about guarantee you that problem didn't start for most of them the minute they turned 19.
Children around our country, despite there being more than enough nutritious food for all of us, are starving nutritionally because of the choices they are making and the situations in which their families are finding themselves, and I think that's tragic!
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I have partnered with Abbott Nutrition #AbbottCFK and become "One of Millions"...one of millions becoming Champions for Kids #Championsforkids and working to fight back against the nutrition tragedy in our nation! I've got to be honest with you, this started for me as a campaign to get my kids involved a little in the community and earn a little money. #CBias It's become SO much more than that in my heart, already, though. So very much more. I just have to roll around in my head what exactly it'll mean!
Champions for Kids exists to mobilize MILLIONS of people by providing training and resources to improve the lives of children in communities across America and beyond. Our goal is to mobilize 20 Million people by 2020.
My kids and I went shopping over the weekend to buy some Abbott Nutrition brand snacks to create some snack packs for kids who need them. We went to our local Walmart to do our shopping.
I'd done some research ahead of time and had a pretty good idea of what kinds of snacks we'd buy.
Since I took a couple of boys with me, we had the chance to play a little "nutritious/not nutritious" game while we were deciding on what exactly to purchase!
We finally decided to stick with snacks from the Abbott Nutrition line.
We bagged up our snacks and delivered them, last night, to our children's pastor, Pastor Gayle!
Pastor Gayle was excited to receive the snacks and said there are children, even in our church, who could use the nutritious snacks! Little Lou was so excited to take the snack packs to church because not only does she love Pastor Gayle, but she had a sense of "knowing" where those snacks were going! Pastor Gayle said she'd looked at the Champions for Kids website through the link I'd sent her, and she was very intrigued by it. She's planning to do some more research, and is considering adding some Champions for Kids ideas into the Wednesday night curriculum!
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People, our snack bags will provide a couple of kids with a couple of snacks, but sadly they can't provide snacks for ALL the kids in our area, and they certainly can't provide the education the families need to eat a healthy diet daily...OR the resources for some of the families to do so!
That's where we all come in. Champions for Kids is an amazing program! Please check out the website. Read some of the "SIMPLE Service Project" ideas. Pick one or make one up. Get out there and DO something. There are children all around us that need our help.
Won't you become One of Millions? Won't you become a Champion for Kids?
This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias All opinions are my own.
