We all eat. We all like to eat or you wouldn’t be here on my food blog. Did you know though that there are children right here in my county (about 10,000 of them to be exact) that go hungry every single weekend? Don’t kid yourself…they are in your counties too!
These are the children in the Lee County school system that are on our county’s Free & Reduced Lunch Program. It’s a great program that provides breakfast and lunch to these children during the week at school, but, what happens to some of these children come the weekend? Unfortunately they are going without food.
CCMI (Community Cooperative Ministries Inc.) is trying to solve this problem. They have implemented a Backpack Program in which a child is given a backpack full of food to feed him or her over the weekend. 700 children take home enough food for the weekend each week!
They want to do more though and this is where you guys come in! CCMI and local businesses and community participants are committing to the NoFood4You weekend on April 24 – 26, 2009. Now this is not just a local event. This can be done anywhere to help build awareness of Childhood Hunger nationwide.
This is what it entails: At lunchtime on Friday, April 24, designated participants will join children at Orange River Elementary and Sunshine Elementary for lunch. The participants including The News-Press reporter Francesca Donlan, ABC-7 anchor Len Jennings, Sarah Owen and others (ME!!!), will eat a typical school lunch that is served in the cafeterias. The participants will then attempt to go without anything else to eat until they gather together again on Monday morning for school breakfast.
You DO NOT have to be here to participate in this event. You can join us virtually,by signing up through Facebook or CCMI website and following us on Twitter. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see how much of an impact we can make if we all do this together?
Some participants are going so far as to donate the money that they would have spent on food over the weekend to CCMI. You too could do this event and donate the money to YOUR LOCAL food bank or soup kitchen!
To participate sign up at either our Facebook Event page or to the CCMI website sign up page. The more people we have involved the more exposure and interest we will be able to get!
This is an organization that is very near and dear to my heart and I hope you will all join me in the NoFood4You weekend. I’m just asking you to try. Put yourself in these children’s shoes for one weekend and experience what they are facing year-round.
Judy
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