On Friday, August 30, all of the 7th grade participated in Food Insecurity Day.
In our English and Math classes, we learned the definition of food insecurity. Food insecurity is when people don’t know when or where their next nutritious meal will come from. There are approximately 49 million food-insecure people in the U.S.A. Of those 49 million people, 16 million are kids under the age of 18. This means that one in every six kids classifies as food insecure. In Colorado, one in 10 seniors struggles to eat each day. And one in 10 Coloradans struggles to have enough money to buy food. We also watched a movie called A Place at the Table. At lunch, everyone participated in a project called the Hunger Banquet. At the banquet, everyone randomly picked a card. The highest card had many choices, like lemonade and cookies, while the lowest card only allowed you to eat one serving of rice and beans for lunch.
After lunch, we interviewed our classmates to see what they are doing to help with food insecurity.
Interviewer: What are you doing to help right now?
Ryan: We are making turkey sandwiches packed with cookies and chips for
food-insecure individuals.
Interviewer: What were you thinking after learning about food insecurity?
Ryan: I felt extremely disappointed to think that some people are not as fortunate
as others and may not know when their next meal is.
Interviewer: What are your thoughts about the movie A Place at the Table?
Jasmine: It’s very sad but helped us learn about food insecurity.
Interviewer: What did you do for math today?
Drew: We calculated how much people have to spend on food that is also
healthy. If you have a yearly income of less than $30,000, you have to budget really low for a whole year.
Interviewer: What was your opinion of the Hunger Banquet?
Jackson and Charles:
It's important to know what is happening in our world. It's good that we
know that what we have, others don't, and to put ourselves in their shoes.
Interviewer: What are you doing to contribute?
Andres: Making posters that we will put up around the school and doing the math to
see how much food we wasted compared to last year.
At the end of the day, we learned that there are many ways to help. You can volunteer at a soup kitchen, endorse the Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger, or help out at a food drive. Today empowered us to take action on food insecurity.
For more facts about food insecurity, visit the Colorado Blueprint To End Hunger website.