It’s only July, but “back to school” fever is everywhere.  Our local drugstore is already filled with displays of notebooks, folders, and pencils.  It seems like the school year just ended! Many children dread going back to school because they don’t want to give up lazy days at the beach with friends or because they’ve heard rumors that their new teacher is too strict. 

Unfortunately, there are other children who dread going back to school because they’re homeless and lack the essential tools they need to succeed in school.  They’re worried about battling the negative stigma of being homeless–and like all other kids, they just want to fit in.

A recent report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that nearly 700,000 people—more than the population of the entire state of Vermont—were homeless in a single night.  Although the report showed that individual homelessness had remained fairly stable in the reporting period, the rate of homeless families had actually increased.  In fact, homelessness among people in families—a “typical” family being a single mother with one or two children—grew 9%.

A desire to help homeless children succeed in school is why we at Feed The Children started the Homeless Education and Literacy Program (HELP), which provides books, school supplies, ready-to-eat foods, and basic personal necessities.  Our goal is to ensure that homeless students have the tools they need to maintain high attendance rates and perform at grade level.  In 2008, we reached 100,000 students and we have big plans for the 2009-2010 school year: we plan to reach 120,000 students.

What we’ve found is that while we provide the school supplies and books to students, we’re also providing self-esteem.

And yet, the harsh reality is that millions of American parents are forced to make compromises affecting their children’s diets every day—compromises sometimes necessary to pay the bills.  Some of the most common compromises include:

• Cutting the size of children’s meals
• Cutting the frequency of children’s meals
• Serving less nutritious food (which is generally cheaper)

So given the choices above, what would you choose to deny your children?

We opt for none of the above. And through the generosity of our corporate and individual supporters, we are able to help millions of parents avoid such heart-wrenching compromises.

Although some people think of domestic hunger as an urban problem, affecting mostly homeless single men in city centers, hunger doesn’t discriminate by geographic area.  In fact, it is often the same communities that produce our nation’s bounty that suffer the most from the devastating effects of hunger and poverty.  Rural communities contend with disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity, which is the government’s own measure of hunger or risk of hunger.  Case in point: the poverty rate is the highest in completely rural counties and counties with high unemployment are disproportionately located in very rural areas.

Children in rural locales are particularly vulnerable.  Poverty rates for rural children are higher than rates of poverty among children in metropolitan areas.  In 2007, 17.7% of rural households with children were estimated to be food insecure.  Regionally, household food insecurity is highest in the South and impacts an estimated 5 million children.

It’s ironic that people who see our nation’s food supply growing might themselves go hungry, but rural communities have more unique challenges in battling hunger, including fewer grocery stores, high food costs, and limited transportation.  As we plan upcoming stops on the Americans Feeding Americans Emergency Caravan™, we will continue to make sure that we don’t forget our brothers and sisters in rural America.