The Facts:
Ohio is third in the nation, behind Louisiana and North Carolina, for children under the age of five at risk for food insecurity. 54% percent of children in Ohio receive free or reduced price school meals. In the first and largest survey of its kind the Gallup Healthways Well-being Index reported that 27.2% of Ohio households with children reported they were at risk of food insecurity. Ohio had 3 cities in the top 25 of Metropolitan Statistical areas with the worst rates of food hardship in 2008-2009.
The Solution:
Child nutrition programs offer the healthiest and most nourishing meals that many children receive each week. For many poor children, these meals may be their only fully-balanced meals. While access to school meals is critically important teachers report that many children arrive at school on Monday morning with headaches, stomachaches, listless or agitated and because they didn’t have enough food over the weekend. Learning and the need for a stable source of nutritious food does not stop with the school day.
Food banks in Ohio have been operating “back pack” programs for several years but are limited in their ability to expand these critical programs to communities in need and schools on waiting lists. The Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks, in partnership with the Ohio Department of Education and OASHF regional foodbanks, submitted a waiver request to the United States Department of Agriculture requesting a waiver of the federal regulations that disallow reimbursements for food taken “off-site,” or home, to eat and to be able to operate a “weekend only” child nutrition program.
Please read more about the Back Pack waiver request we submitted and sign on to support children who are at risk for hunger in your community.
