Involving Your Children in Helping Feed the 35 Million Hungry Americans

by Jyl Johnson Pattee on January 26th, 2010 | No Comments »

According to the US Department of Agriculture, "At least 35 million Americans aren't getting enough food each day. Yet about 100 billion pounds of food are wasted in America every year."

This is an astounding fact. Ask yourself: Are you contributing to the waste or are you helping feed the hungry? And, are your children aware of this fact and involved in helping reduce the number?

Raising giving children is as simple as identifying every day opportunities to give and taking advantage of them together as a family. Feeding the hungry is one such opportunity. But how to begin?

Here's five simple steps to involving your children in this cause:

Find a food bank in your area. Visit FoodPantries.org to identify locations.
Collect non-perishable items you aren't using from your own pantry and home. (Be sure to check the expiration dates on canned food and baby formula and food.)
To add an element of fun for your kids, have them decorate a cardboard box to put the food in.
On the way to the food bank, share with your family the facts of people facing hunger in your area.
On the way home, ask each child to describe his or her experience, specifically how it made him or her feel to help those in need.

Making the experience meaningful, fun, and emotional will help them create a positive association with giving.

This picture is used with permission. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Bio
Latest Posts

Jyl Johnson Pattee

An active part of the Mom It Forward team, Jyl primarily writes about parenting, social good, and all things travel related. In a past life, Jyl was an award-winning copywriter and designer of corporate training programs for Fortune 100 companies. Offline, Jyl is married to @TroyPattee; a mom to two teen boys and a beagle named #Hashtag; loves large amounts of cheese, dancing, and traveling; and lives in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Topping her bucket list is the goal to visit 50 countries by the time she's 50.