Rallying to End Childhood Hunger

Comment on this post to donate $1 to help end child hunger!

In the last month you’ve heard me share the heartbreaking stats about childhood hunger in America. Nearly 17 million kids in the United States are hungry. That’s about 1 in 4. And these stats get even more scary during the summer when kids aren’t benefiting from the National School Lunch program.

During the school year, 19.5 million children receive free or reduced-price lunches through the National School Lunch Program, but only 2.2 million children receive meals during the summer months through the Summer Food Service Program.1

Whether the gap is 17 million kids or even half of that number, too many kids struggle with hunger during the summer months. Because of this, please consider registering to host your own rally. Every dollar raised and donated online will stay in your community to help kids in need.

It’s incredible that this is happening in our backyard. Hearing these stats make me want to do more. As I  fear I’m not doing enough and try to plan what else I can do to make a difference, I’m inspired by those who are already doing more.

Of course, everyone will have their own ideas on how they can make a difference, raise money, or rally to end child hunger. Check out this ConAgra Foods’ Child Hunger Ends Her Neighborhood Rally website and you can Download this guide on how to host a Neighborhood rally from Child Hunger Ends Now here.

I’m especially inspired by the rallies of the below two blogger correspondents for ConAgra Foods and Feeding America.

Danielle from Extraordinary Mommy is encouraging us all to do lemonade stands for 1 Saturday in the Month of May here. I love this. It is so simple, but yet so genius. Totally easy to implement but even more importantly I love how Danielle explains that this will inspire our children to do more. At the end of the day, that will make the biggest difference in the future of tomorrow children. Here’s some info from Danielle’s post that is pretty powerful.

Kids Learn to Help Others From YOU

*By seeing you help others

*By actually doing

*By doing often

Naturally, they have to be old enough to grasp the concept – but I think you can start young. (My kids are 3 1/2 and 5 1/2)   My kids are about the same age as Danielle’s kiddos 2 and 4, and I know they would love to host a Lemonade Stand. They are always begging I let them do this anyhow and we’ve never done it yet.  And this would be the perfect way to let them know we can make a difference in the lives of others by donating the funds we raise.

Another cool idea came from Courtney at DetroitMommies.com who got a restaurant to donate 5% of profits Feeding America. She called her rally, Feeding Ourselves to Feed America.

Here’s how she did it according to her post, “Our second Neighborhood Rally was in downtown Rochester at Gus O’Connors.  We had about 40 people turn up for the event and it was a lot of fun!  Gus O’Connors is an Irish restaurant/pub that has great food and a warm atmosphere.  They agreed to donate 5% of our invite’s food and drinks to Feeding America.  We included a 50/50 raffle and our local smoothie shop, Beyond Juice, donated a year of smoothies to 5 lucky winners!  Every little bit counts and we decided since we were all planning on having dinner anyway, might as well enjoy it with friends and give to a great cause at the same time!”

What a super idea to support a local biz, have a fabulous night out with friends, and raise money to help end child hunger.

It’s easy to think our little bit won’t really help but remember, $1 buys 7 meals. So if you somehow raise $100 – that’s 700 meals! Pretty incredible huh?

Remember every little bit makes a huge difference. Especially when you add up all those little bits.

Please comment on this post, retweet this post or one of my tweets about the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign. For every tweet, Classy Mommy will donate $1 (up to $100) to the cause. Please use hashtag:  #fightchildhunger so they can find your tweet.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post by ConAgra Foods to support its Child Hunger Ends Here Neighborhood Rally campaign in partnership with Feeding America.