To The Editor:

The Myth of Starving Americans by Warren Kozak (Jan.30, 2012) is astonishingly biased and potentially harmful.

As a national network of food banks on the front lines of hunger on a daily basis, it is inconceivable that anyone would question that hunger exists in America. Not only does it exist, it is present in every state and every county across our nation. While we can all agree that jobs are the best solution to hunger, millions of families are still hurting from the worst recession in decades and for many, job opportunities remain few and far between.

Kozak cherry-picks his facts and figures in an attempt to prove allegations that are inaccurate and mean-spirited:  that federal government programs waste billions of dollars providing food to people that are not really in need of help, and that fraud and abuse are rampant.

Ignored by Kozak is the USDA’s September 2011 report, Food Security Status of U.S. Households, 2010, which is generally considered the gold-standard for data on Americans living at risk of hunger.

That report found that nearly 49 million Americans are food insecure and that 16 million Americans live in households with “very low food security.” In other words, 16 million Americans literally find themselves going hungry at times because they cannot buy or access food.

In our nation today, where 1 in 7 Americans live at or below poverty – a family of four attempting to survive on an annual household income of $22,350 or less – it is not surprising that so many people lack the funds to provide themselves and their families with three square meals a day. The reason the numbers of American’s going without meals on a regular basis is not higher is because safety net programs like SNAP and school lunches are working exactly as intended.

SNAP benefits are targeted to the most vulnerable in our communities. Eighty-four percent of all benefits go to households that include a child, elderly, or disabled person. In other words, people who are too young, too old, or simply unable to work. While much attention has been given to the fact that participation has grown significantly in recent years, it is only shocking to learn that SNAP participation grew by 53 percent from 2006 to 2010 if you fail to mention that the number of unemployed people grew by 110 percent over the same time period.

Kozak alleges that fraud is “major problem” but, in fact, SNAP error rates declined by 61 percent from 1999 to 2010, to a record low of 3.81 percent. The accuracy rate of 96 percent is now at an all-time program high, and is considerably higher than other major benefit programs, for example Supplemental Security Income (90 percent), Medicare fee-for-service (89.5 percent), and Medicare Advantage Part C (85.9 percent). 

Investing in federal anti-hunger programs is not just the right thing to do, it is also a wise investment of resources that delivers results on multiple bottom lines  by containing costs in healthcare, increasing worker productivity, creating  more robust and efficient local economies, which then becomes a platform for upward mobility. 

Feeding America provides food and groceries to more than 5.7 million Americans each and every week. The staff and volunteers of our food banks and the food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency feeding centers they serve are literally in the trenches, face to face every day with Americans who come to us when their food stamps are exhausted and their cupboards are bare.

We would invite Mr. Kozak to join come to one of our facilities and learn firsthand the facts about hunger in America.

Sincerely,

Vicki Escarra

President and CEO

Feeding America

Howard G. Buffett

Ambassador Against Hunger

United Nations World Food Program

My phone, Twitter, and the DC Metro are the three things I can’t live without. I throw my hands in the air and panic if they are lost, over capacity, or not running on time. Thinking about it, I’m 100 percent sure that most of the hipster teen population does that.

But they aren’t the most important things for many teens. Around the world, many teens go without food, let alone Twitter.

We’ve all seen it, whether it’s an advertisement on the train or a trending topic: end hunger. So many of us ignore it, and go on with our daily lives. But it’s real! It gets real when last year your family had a good harvest but this year there’s famine. It gets real when you can’t think of anything other than next meal, because it’s been so long since the last.

There are many programs and campaigns that promote hunger awareness. But some of these groups don’t have many opportunities for teens to get involved. Well, that’s where Revolution Hunger waves their hands in the air so that teens start to care! Revolution Hunger is the awesome campaign that promotes teen involvement in ending world hunger and educating others about it. 

We have three chapters, so far, but you can find us on revolutionhunger.org. We focus on teen involvement because teens are the future. All teens want to make a meaningful difference and get that good recognition. With Revolution Hunger, not only will you Facebook it, film it, write about it, and explore it, you will be discover how YOU impact the fight against hunger. It doesn’t take too much, just a little passion.

Teens, yea we’re stubborn, we sleep late, and listen to loud music. We also care about being listened to. This is the perfect opportunity to get community, federal and world leaders to hear us out and help others that don’t have a loud voice in their countries. Revolution Hunger is only a tool–you’re the driver. Don’t be indifferent, be another initiative. Tweet that! And join us at Revolution Hunger.

The more people volunteer, the more struggling people have a chance at turning their lives around. Alone, we cannot reach out to everyone.. What we can do is encourage prosperous citizens to devote a fraction of their time to help those less fortunate than they are.

Why decide to become a volunteer? At UNLV, there is an on campus organization for the LGBTQIA community called Spectrum. They serve their community in different ways on a weekly basis. For example, they serve homeless people by volunteering to pack sandwiches for the homeless, serve our underprivileged youth by volunteering at the local food bank Three Square and packing them meals for the weekend, working with kids directly for a nonprofit named MonkeyGym that allow them to do artistic project for their community. I mean, they do so much! But why?

Thinh, a Spectrum member, says that as a homosexual he volunteers to educate others. Society frowns upon members of the LGBT community for unfair reasons. When he volunteers, he shows his community members that he cares as much as anyone else does, and that sexual orientation has nothing to do with how active someone is in their community..

Cai , another member of Spectrum, volunteers at a hospital for various reasons. His older sister volunteered and shared stories with him. As a role model, she inspired him to also do what he can for the needy. Cai is studying Biology at UNLV, aspiring to have a career in the medical field. He volunteers because it is also a great means of getting hands on experience in the field he is interested in. He also volunteers for Relay for Life, which is a cancer awareness walk to support those suffering from cancer. His grandfather, who he had never met but was told he would soon after he started high school, died before he had the chance to meet him when he was a freshman. Heartbroken by his loss, he decided to go out of his way to reach out to others that are suffering from the same kind of losses in hopes of there being less people in the world that would have to deal with losing loved ones to cancer.

All sorts of people volunteer, and they have their own reasons for doing so.  However, there is a common goal: reaching out to people that have less than they do. As citizens of the world, we should all do what we can for our fellow man. Besides, with our support, they can have the opportunity to give so much back to others.

Here is the top ten blog postings by traffic in 2011. Thanks for reading, following along and sharing!

1. Child Hunger Ends Here: A Special Report (March 18)
2. Map the Meal Gap Cheat Sheet: Everything You Need To Know (March 23)
3. Using Facebook to Help Out Food Banks (May 12)
4. ABC News to Dedicate Day to Hunger (August 22)
5. Explore food insecurity rates in your community: Map the Meal Gap research launches (March 24)
6. Client Story: Kim and Eric from Orange County (February 21)
7. Children without a home: A 60 Minutes Story (March 9)
8. Guest Post: Photographer Jessi Gradin-Kramer (July 7)
9. Client Story: Alison from Mississippi (February 14)
10. New Chicago Mayor Emmanuel seeks to eliminate food deserts (May 17)

Did you have a favorite post that did not make the top ten? I enjoyed interviewing Mark Salling who plays Puck on the hit show Glee. But if I would have to go with my favorites, it was my posts from Joplin both from on site and finding the comparison pictures afterward.

Feeding the Hungry: 2012 Georgian of the Year

By Jerry Grillo. 

Bill Bolling has dedicated his life to engaging, educating and empowering disparate – sometimes, desperate – people and institutions, bringing them together to solve the problems within their communities, coaxing the body politic to heal itself. It’s been one long and elaborate game of connect-the-dots for Bolling, who is genetically inclined to always say yes, but does not want this story to be about him. He wants it to be about the dots.

“In fact, it’s very uncomfortable on a certain level to get plucked out as the guy who did this or that, because one never works alone,” says Bolling, founder and executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank (ACFB). “I guess I did create what we might call the container that allows all this good work to go on. But I did that with the help of a lot of other people.

“It’s all about the community. It always has been, and I’m just one among the many.”

Nonetheless, this is Bolling’s story, because he’s Georgia Trend’s 2012 Georgian of the Year, for creating and growing and maintaining the container – he also calls it a tool – that has been feeding hungry people since 1979, when he started the South’s first food bank (and one of the nation’s first) in the basement of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta.

And his job has never seemed so critical. A miserable economy, high unemployment, increased poverty and a disappearing middle class are adding up to more hunger, and the ACFB has responded, increasing food distribution by more than 30 percent a year for the past three years.

Without increasing staff and utilizing more than 1,000 volunteers a month, the ACFB dispersed about 34 million pounds of food in fiscal 2010-2011 to more than 700 partner agencies in 38 North Georgia counties, including Metro Atlanta, and Bolling doesn’t expect the trend to reverse any time soon, either.

“For the past several years, we were all just working harder, thinking that this economic climate was an anomaly and things would go back to the way they were. I don’t think it’s going back.

“But we’re not broke; we’re not without resources,” he says, meaning the collective “we,” all of us, not the ACFB by itself. “I think that maybe we were intoxicated before. We started to feel like we were owed all this … stuff. And this is our wake-up call. We weren’t owed anything, so now let’s figure out what really has value.”

Leave it to Bolling, the eternal optimist, to find a silver lining even as more stomachs are growling.

“In my talks, I always say there aren’t many good things that can come out of a depression or a recession or whatever this is. But when I say that we’re distributing 34 percent more food, and dealing with the logistics of that, all the trucks, the warehouse, it just means that thousands more people are helping their neighbors,” he says.

“It’s really neat to see what people are capable of doing for each other in uncertain times. In the past, so many of us used to think of those ‘other people’ or that ‘other guy.’ Maybe they were immigrants, maybe they were poor people, maybe they had personal problems and made bad choices, but they were the ‘others.’

“Now, that ‘other guy’ is your brother-in-law or your neighbor.”

Bolling says that 20 percent of the people looking for assistance through the ACFB today have never asked for help before. And when you consider that about half of the people fed through the ACFB have jobs but aren’t earning a livable wage, it’s easy to understand the thoughts and emotions driving the Occupy movement.

“We’re living in a new reality,” says Bolling. “It’s a challenge for all of us in America right now, and we’re operating out of fear. Fear is the common denominator. It’s what sells today. It’s the core emotion we’re dealing with as a society.

“We should remember that for over 200 years we’ve faced every challenge. We’ve gone through tough times. It’s what gives us character. So, we’re in one of those times now. But if your orientation in life is to see problems as opportunities, then we are living in incredible times right now.”

Building Community

Bolling was the only kid in tiny Denton, N.C., who drove a tractor to Little League practice. The tractor was a gift from his grandfather, Ben Carroll, who told him to plough gardens all around the rural town for widows and people who didn’t have much of their own.

“That was the world I grew up in. Everybody seemed to help everybody,” says Bolling, who was six when his birth father died and he moved with his mother, Becky, to live in a house Carroll built just for them.

Becky eventually married Don Garner, a man that Bill still thinks of as “Dad,” not stepdad. Garner owned a small broom manufacturing company, which is where Bill spent most of his after-school hours, working and letting the entrepreneurial spirit sink in.

But he inherited his sense of community service from his grandfather, who was the city manager, policeman and dogcatcher (among other things) in Denton, a city of about 800 some 40 miles south of Winston-Salem. And when a house caught on fire in the middle of the night, he’d wake up his eight-year-old grandson Bill, who lived next door.

“I was his sidekick,” Bolling says. “We also had a little farm on the edge of town, raised some animals, grew our own food. And my grandfather would go out and lease more land and grow more food. We’d fill up the truck and ride around town – he knew where the needy families lived.

“I guess my grandfather was the first food banker I ever met.”

Bolling joined the Air Force at 17, right after high school, and spent almost two years in Vietnam working on C-130s’ airborne navigation systems. He saw plenty of combat from the air, got shot at, and it left its mark.

“Those are big markers in a young life, going to war,” says Bolling.

When he left the Air Force in 1969, he got involved in the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights Movement and got seriously involved in his spiritual journey.

He worked a thousand jobs, give or take, and was, at different times, a carpenter, surveyor, salesman and carpet cleaner, went to college at Appalachian State (Boone, N.C.) on the GI Bill, then moved to Georgia for grad school (he studied Humanistic Psychology at West Georgia College), met his wife, Haqiqa, and together they started an interfaith community on 10th and Myrtle streets in what was a rough part of Midtown Atlanta at the time.

The community worked with homeless people, the mentally ill, taught and practiced meditation, even started a restaurant, and Bolling discovered that he was an entrepreneur and a leader. He also started volunteering at St. Luke’s and learned to always say yes.

“I had been running a community kitchen for about four years and didn’t have a vision of what the food bank would be. For me it was a matter of getting some other congregations to open their doors and help feed the hungry,” Bolling says. “I actually went out and promised all these congregations all the food they needed if they would just open up. Lo and behold, one of them said yes, and I didn’t have the food!

“So that’s how the food bank started – I needed some place to store the food.”

He introduced himself to everyone he could in the food industry, and when someone called to say, “We found 15 tractor-trailer loads of this food in our warehouse, and its almost out of date … can you take it?” Well, the answer was yes.

“The answer is always yes. That’s how you learn to figure things out,” Bolling says. “I couldn’t keep 15 tractor-trailer loads in that basement, so you start thinking about who else you can share it with.”

Moveable Feasts

St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, the world’s first, was established in Phoenix in 1967 by John van Hengel, who developed the food “banking” concept – individuals and resources (like grocery stores disposing of food in damaged packaging) could deposit food and funds, and social agencies could make withdrawals of food for their clients at no cost.

By the late 1970s the idea was spreading fast, and when Bolling started the ACFB, about a dozen others around the country were cropping up. They met to share knowledge and ideas, formed a national network called America’s Second Harvest (now known as Feeding America), and the ACFB had the franchise for the entire Southeast.

“I helped start food banks in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida,” Bolling says.

The network grew within Georgia, too, as banks started in Savannah, Macon, Augusta – there are seven across the state today (an eighth is being developed in Gainesville) under the umbrella of the Georgia Food Bank Association, headquartered at the ACFB. Together, they serve more than 2,500 agencies that feed people in all 159 Georgia counties.

“Necessity was the mother of invention,” says Mike Firmin, founder and executive director of Golden Harvest Food Bank in Augusta, established in 1982.

“Second Harvest didn’t have Augusta in its expansion plan. It wasn’t considered a major food distribution center,” Firmin says. “But this community had great determination, and Bill saw that. He saw it in me and in how I described what we were doing in Augusta. He lent his support; he shared food and connections. Basically, he kind of discipled me in the food banking movement.”

Today, the Augusta food bank serves more than 400 nonprofit agencies in Georgia and South Carolina. And you can hear a bunch of those stories from other food banks across Georgia, nonprofit entrepreneurs whose core business is to feed the hungry by leveraging the resources in their communities.

“One of the great things about food banking is it provides a very real, locally governed structure for people of goodwill who want to make a difference to plug into, at every level, with their time or their money,” Firmin says.

And Bolling is the guy who first started rolling that social snowball. It’s grown to startling proportions.

The ACFB is now in its fourth location – a state-of-the-art, LEED-certified 129,000-square-foot facility (a first for any food bank in the country) that features one of the state’s largest rooftop solar power arrays. About 110 employees and hundreds of volunteers work in the acquisition, processing, packaging and shipping of food. They have a fleet of trucks that make deliveries to partner agencies all over the region, utilizing logistics software acquired from UPS and a fleet of 15 tractor-trailer trucks.

“We’re learning something new every day, and when you’ve got to learn something you ask yourself, ‘Who’s the best?’ Well, we were growing rapidly and we had a logistical challenge, but Atlanta is the center of logistics,” Bolling says. “We’ve got UPS. We’ve got Coca-Cola, which sends out 800 trucks a day. I invited all of them to the table to teach us.”

Bolling talks a lot about the table, about bringing people of different political or religious ideologies to the table where they discover common ground and goals.

“One of Bill’s key talents is his remarkable ability to engage the entire community, to relate to all segments of the community,” says Rob Johnson, chief operating officer at ACFB. “He’s always striving for inclusion of as many people as possible. One minute he’ll be talking and interacting with someone on the street, a homeless person, and the next he’ll be meeting with a senator or a CEO.”

Johnson, who started one of the first overnight homeless shelters in Atlanta, was one of Bolling’s early shoppers. He joined ACFB in the 1980s after doing a feasibility study that led to the launching of Atlanta’s Table, a pioneering partnership in which the ACFB picks up prepared, ready-to-eat food for quick turnaround from local restaurants, caterers and hotels. That program led to passage of a state law protecting food donors from liability. The ACFB handles about 600,000 pounds of prepared food every year now.

Through the years the ACFB has added a variety of other projects to its mission. The Community Gardens Project has inspired more than 175 gardens all over North Georgia. Communities are growing their own food, and by the way, the food bank collects about 100,000 pounds of food a year from these gardens to feed others.

Kids In Need provides school supplies for more than 300 Title I schools in a dozen systems. The Atlanta Prosperity Campaign connects working families and individuals to money-saving programs and existing benefits, such as earned income tax credits – last year they brought more than $22 million back into the pockets of people who really need the cash (i.e., not the proverbial one percent).

“See, that’s what I call economic development,” says Bolling, who has worked every angle he knows to make it all happen, but sees some tough challenges ahead.

There was federal stimulus to help meet the demand of the past couple of years. That money’s gone now, but while most banks were trying to figure out what to do with their federal cash injections, the food bank was putting its stimulus to work on the street.

And the food bank is looking at a 30 percent cut in aid from the USDA, even as it takes on the job of managing the federal TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) contract for Georgia – a perfect example of public-private partnership that actually works.

“The collection, transportation and accounting for food? We do that better than the government can, so it makes perfect sense,” Bolling says. “A dollar coming into the food bank makes $7.30 worth of food going out the door. The government can’t come close to that. The TEFAP contract takes us beyond the rhetoric of ‘public-private’ to a better reality.”

But now he’s contemplating that rueful exercise that’s become a universal theme in a circle-the-drain economy – doing more with less. Emptier than usual shelves in the warehouse worry him, but a couple of new programs will help keep food moving, he says.

First, the ACFB is servicing retail stores like never before – 87 Walmarts, about 140 Krogers and 160 Publix stores. They get about three million pounds of food a year just from the Walmarts, and it serves as one of Bolling’s classic win-win scenarios.

“Walmart’s commitment in this was not feeding hungry people, it was to the environment. They’re one of the leading companies practicing environmental stewardship, so they’re committed to not putting stuff in landfills,” he says. “That’s stuff we can use.”

America throws away about 40 percent of the food it grows and packages, and Bolling has made it his life’s work to link that otherwise wasted resource with the people who need it. It has brought him in contact with the people who can afford to help.

“I’m not sure why I initially felt like I could go to CEOs or politicians, into boardrooms, but over time I’ve come to realize that I belong at those tables,” Bolling says. “We’re providing a huge community service, an asset, so I need to be at those tables, especially in these times. It’s all about creating win-win situations.”

He isn’t planning on retirement, not anytime soon, though the ACFB is in the midst of sustainability and succession planning.

“I’ll retire as executive director of the food bank some day, but as a sense of purpose, I think I’ll always be feeding hungry people,” he says.

It’s what sustains him, feeding hungry people and bringing others along for the ride, connecting those dots, changing lives, and by extension, maybe the world.

“When one person helps another person, that’s when transformation happens,” he says. Given Bolling’s line of work, and his Christian faith, he thinks often about the classic “stone soup” story and its Biblical relative, the parable of Jesus feeding the 5,000.

“Getting 5,000 different people to share their stash, that’s the big miracle,” he says. “This is our miracle today. That’s the story of the food bank.”

The presents were unwrapped, family meals were shared, and the confetti was thrown. Now, the lights and decorations are coming down. The holidays came and went in the blink of an eye. As we settle into 2012, and I reflect on the year past, one memory stands out strongly in my mind. On December 13, 2011, I had the honor of witnessing one of the most genuine, purest forms of generosity. Our client, Tonya, was on the receiving end. 

Tonya lives in a bare, tiny two bedroom apartment just a few minutes from downtown Cincinnati. In this nearly empty space, Tonya doesn’t just worry about herself. One of her biggest concerns is not having a bed for her three young children to sleep in at night. She worries about Tyana, a tall, slender and rather shy 8-year-old; Niayala, a sweet 7-year-old with a big heart (that happened to have two holes in it when she was born); and little Stevie, who, like most 2-year-olds, is curious and exploring everything.

“She’s really been struggling trying to take care of the kids,” said Deborah, Tonya’s mother. “She works two or three jobs whenever she can.”

Tonya is determined to make a better life for her children, and, on December 13, she got the jumpstart she needed. Her family was furnished with a new beginning. 

Hordes of volunteers armed with donated furniture, kitchen utensils, bedding, clothing and several toys came knocking at Tonya’s door. Tyana, Niayala and Stevie’s eyes lit up and they watched the steady stream of strangers bring in piece after piece of furniture and  set up two beds, the first ones the kids can call their very own.

The children screeched with delight as a Christmas tree was set up and numerous bags containing gifts were brought in for them to open on Christmas morning. That’s when reality hit me – these children were being introduced to a life they’ve never had. For the first time, they had their own beds to sleep in at night. I found myself fighting back tears as I watched this act of selfless kindness unfold; as complete strangers transformed this family’s tiny apartment into a home.

On December 13, 2011, Tonya and her  family were furnished with a new beginning. And on December 13, 2011, I was reminded of how acts of kindness, small or large, can go a long way. How generosity can help to transform lives. How selflessness can bring so much joy and love to others, even complete strangers.

So, as 2011 comes to a close and we open a new chapter…here’s to a new year, new opportunities and new beginnings.

On a rainy December day, umbrellas provided little shelter to families waiting in line to receive food from the Lord’s Lamb Ministry Food Pantry in Hopkins Park, Ill. Patiently, soaked and tired clients came in one by one to fill their boxes with food. They were greeted inside by Bruce and Lillian Spencer, who are both ready to guide them through the tractor-trailer full of food.

Wednesdays start early for Bruce and Lillian, the directors of Lord’s Lambs Ministry Food Pantry. They begin the day by picking up additional food donations from Walmart before handing out an average of 300 pounds of food to Kankakee County residents from 11am – 1 pm. The Lord’s Lamb Ministry Food Pantry, an agency of Northern Illinois Food Bank, has served this Kankakee County community every Wednesday since 2007. Clients receive approximately 3 days-worth of food per visit.

In Kankakee County, 17.2percent of people and 25.7 percent of children are “food insecure,” without access to enough food to live an active, healthy life. New families arrive to the pantry each week, many with at least one underemployed adult who can’t bring enough money home to make ends meet. By providing food at no cost, the pantry helps these families save enough money to meet their rent or mortgage payments and fill their cars with gas.

To learn more about the Lord’s Lambs Ministry Food Pantry contact Bruce Spencer at bruce.spencer@att.net or Fredi Schlagel at fschlagel@feedingamerica.org.

They recently sent this amazing success story featuring a former client who now has the opportunity to give back to her neighbors in need. Take a look at Prashida’s story in the following video:

The past four years have been mind-blowing in the Petersen household, here in Southern Orange County. We are all running around, working hard, trying to earn a dollar and then turning around and spending $1.50, thinking that extra $.50 would come from somewhere. It never does.

It didn’t always used to be this way. My husband worked for 25 years as a mortgage and real estate broker, owned his own companies, and we were fine until the whole economy shut down starting in 2008. That is when reality hit us in the face. What are we going to do now?

We had to start borrowing from friends and family to help pay our bills. We built up the balance on our credit cards. Meanwhile, my husband spent time volunteering with the police department’s search and rescue division and went back to school to earn his Doctorate of Theology. We were planning for the future, but we really needed help in the present.

In 2009, we started buying reduced-price groceries from a local nonprofit. By the end of the year, we could no longer afford to do this. At the time, my 11-year-old son was signed up to go to a local food pantry to serve with his bible study group, so I attended with him. This opened our eyes to a whole new world – the world of serving others and not just ourselves.  What a reality check!

Our family soon decided to join our son by volunteering at the pantry. At this agency, which receives food from theFeeding America member: Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, we stocked shelves, boxed food for needy families, and trained new volunteers. I was so happy my boys were learning the art of serving others.

After a couple months of volunteering, I felt God wanted me to ask for some food assistance. Well, I was not raised knowing anything about food pantries, and never thought of asking for groceries. This was very humbling! But my family found much comfort from the food pantry’s leader, Rana Muncy, and the other volunteers who were there to help.

We started receiving our groceries at the food pantry around March 2010, and were able to get boxes of good food every 30 days. This food pantry works hard to be able to meet my dietary restrictions, and we save about $500 month on groceries. My sons are always so anxious to get the food home so they can see what they got! They are never dissatisfied; it is food that God has blessed us with.

Things are starting to look so much better for my family. Eric, my husband, has just started to work as a medical device representative for his brother, who is an orthopedic surgeon in Florida. We are slowly but surely starting to dig ourselves out of the deep financial hole that has been created, but we still need a little assistance from the food pantry.

I am so moved by the help my family has been able to receive, and the opportunity to give back.  The giving at the food pantry – through the support of the folks from Feeding America and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County — has really anchored our family to reality.

Now I know that life is not about earning as much as you can so you can spend as much as you can so that you can acquire as much as you can.  The more you give, the more blessed you are in return. We’ve learned you need to aspire to inspire before you expire.

Pack ‘til They’re Back is a holiday campaign intended to raise awareness for the children who rely on the Feeding America BackPack Program. Over the course of the holidays, Feeding America will share the stories of families served by their local BackPack Programs. Last week, you learned about Donna and her girls, a Missouri family struggling with hunger. Our final story features a family served by the North Texas Food Bank.

Destiny(10) and Qualan (7) wake up and get to school early, just like most of their classmates at their Dallas elementary school. They gather with other children in the cafeteria and wait patiently to get their free breakfasts. In a few short hours, they know they can rely on a hot lunch as well. For Destiny, Qualan, and many of their schoolmates, these guaranteed meals during the week ease the financial burden for the families in a community where food-insecurity is a constant. Before the two had access to their local BackPack Program, the weekends were a little tough.

Aquala, the mother of these two lovable children, lost her job in March. Tired of feeling easily dispensable, she decided to go back to school in pursuit of a healthcare career. Between school fees, rent, and bills, Aquala can barely keep up. Her family is one of the many at this elementary school that rely on their local BackPack Program served by the North Texas Food Bank.

The Feeding America BackPack Program offers children like Destiny and Qualan the access to nutritious meals over the weekend so that they can come to school on Mondays ready to learn. We recently learned more about this family and their local BackPack site during a trip sponsored by our partners at C&S Wholesale Grocers.

Destiny, Qualan, and Aquala shared their story with us in the following video: