When I am hungry, I ask my mom and she says we don't have nothing. We're supposed to have a full refrigerator, but we don't. I don't like it when I'm hungry.Blake, age 7
1 in 5 Children in the Ozarks are hungry
Nearly 30% of those served by Ozarks Food Harvest’s network are children
Southwest Missouri is home to staggering child food insecurity rates — 21 percent of children in Ozarks Food Harvest’s service area face food insecurity. That’s one in five children — and higher than the Missouri average of 18.6 percent — who face uncertainty finding their next meal and may go to bed hungry. Well over half of their families are also ineligible for any form of government assistance, including free lunches at school. They simply don’t have enough to eat, and their families are forced to turn to charitable support for the most basic necessity — food.
Children can’t learn when they’re distracted by hunger. The side effects can hamper their ability to successfully perform academically and socially, creating significant obstacles for proper development. Fortunately for these children, Ozarks Food Harvest’s food pantries and feeding sites can help. Initiatives like the Weekend Backpack Program, After-School Food & Summer Food programs also help feed at-risk kids over the weekends, after school hours and during the summertime, when children do not have access to free or reduced meal programs at school.
Children
Kids experiencing hunger are less likely to excel academically and socially.
Maybe it’s crackers, grapes or peanut butter and jelly. But for more than 54,000 children in southwest Missouri, they’re facing hunger. They don’t even know where their next meal will come from — but you can help.
The Food Bank’s Weekend Backpack Program provides children facing hunger with a bag of nutritious, child-friendly food to take home every weekend of the school year when they might otherwise go without.
During the school year, Ozarks Food Harvest sponsors local after-school sites through federally funded programs that help provide nutritious meals to children when they’re not at school.
Ozarks Food Harvest sponsors local summer kids’ sites through federally funded programs that help provide nutritious meals to children when they’re not at school.
