More Kids Are Being Fed In Arkansas This Summer Because of the No Kid Hungry Campaign
Posted by Katherine Van Steenburgh on Monday, June 13, 2011
Editor’s Note: All summer, Share Our Strength staff will be visiting summer meals sites across the country to show our work in action. This post is part of that series. To learn more about Summer Meals, visit strength.org/summer.
Our first stop on the summer meals road trip was to the great state of Arkansas! Less than a year ago, Governor Mike Beebe took a stand against childhood hunger in Arkansas and joined with Share Our Strength and the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance to form the Arkansas No Kid Hungry Campaign.
Arkansas has the highest levels of child food insecurity in the country. In the state, 24.4% of the kids face hunger. In the summertime, many of those kids have nowhere to turn. The Arkansas No Kid Hungry partnership made summer and SNAP outreach the priorities of the campaign for the first year.
On our trip to Arkansas were able to see the power of the No Kid Hungry partnership in action. We witnessed the value of Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign everywhere we went. We got to witness exactly how the Arkansas No Kid Hungry campaign is affecting childhood hunger in Arkansas.
Here are a few ways pieces of evidence that the Arkansas No Kid Hungry campaign is making progress:
MATERIALS: The No Kid Hungry partnership office was jam packed with outreach materials: door hangers, posters, yard signs, banners, and flyers. Materials were being shipped to schools, so that that information could go into kids’ backpacks as the school year ended. Many sites told us that they are going to reach more kids this summer because the outreach materials are getting the word out.
THE SUMMER MEALS HOTLINE: Arkansas has set up a summer meals hotline that is advertised on all their materials. Residents can call the hotline and will receive information about where they can find a summer meals site need them. When I was in Arkansas, the first hotline calls came in and the No Kid Hungry Campaign was already busy matching residents with sites.
THE POWER OF THE GOVERNOR’S SUPPORT: It was clear that having the Governor’s support was essential to making progress. Governor Beebe has made the No Kid Hungry Campaign a priority and that momentum is driving success across the partnership.
MINI-GRANTS: Share Our Strength is giving mini-grants this summer in to help local sites feed more kids. We visited two sites benefiting from mini-grants that will help provide transportation for kids to summer sites.
GROWING SUMMER SITES: Every summer meals site we visited is expanding this year to feed more kids. And sites are starting in counties that have never had a summer meals site before!
POOLING RESOURCES: The No Kid Hungry team is helping the local sites, the Arkansas Department of Human Services, and the Governor’s office work together and pool their resources in order to feed more kids this summer.
The established goal for the summer in Arkansas was to increase the number of kids served by 10%. In talking to everyone on the ground in Arkansas, many of them believe they’ll blow past that goal, maybe even increasing the number of kids served by 40%. Way to go team Arkansas!
RELATED LINKS:
— Learn more about Share Our Strength’s Summer Meals work
— Help Support Summer Meals Work
June 13, 2011 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: Arkansas, no kid hungry, summer meals
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