The people at Harvesters, Kansas City’s food bank, have an appropriate reminder at this time of year:
“Hunger doesn’t take a summer vacation.”
In the summer, low-income children are more likely to be without meals. During the school year, more than 100,000 children in 13 counties are enrolled in free or reduced-price school meals.
But in the summer kids are at home, and the kitchen cabinets sometimes are bare because low-income parents cannot easily replace school meals.
Rising fuel and food prices put an additional burden on parents who are struggling to put food on the table.
About 43 percent of those who depend on Harvesters’ help are children. In the summer, food pantries report they see many more children. But food pantries, too, are stretched thin by a growing number of people who rely on them to feed their families.
There are many ways to make sure that children do not go without meals this summer. One of the best is to make a donation to Harvesters — Kansas City’s food bank — which supplies about 550 pantries, kitchens, homeless shelters and nonprofit agencies that feed people in need.
These Harvesters’ locations also help people who may have emergency needs following loss of a job or other unexpected financial problems.
To help Harvesters help others:
Make a financial donation.
Donate nonperishable food directly at participating groceries or other locations.
Organize a food drive at work, place of worship or in the neighborhood.
Join Plant A Row, a way to provide fresh produce from area gardens.
Volunteer to sort and repackage food.
Okey doke. This is a standard article we see every year. But I have a small question - why are low-income people having children when they cannot afford to feed them? If they choose to have them, exactly how does that become a moral imperative upon me, in that I must provide for them?
How about taking an indefinite holiday from having unprotected sex when you cannot afford to properly feed a baby?
Just asking, since I rarely see this issue raised in the Star.
p.s. Contraceptives are cheap and easily available, and there's NO lack of sex education available from the public school system.