The Dude Is Up for Breakfast: Jeff Bridges’ New Push on Childhood Hunger

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/15/the-dude-is-up-for-breakfast-jeff-bridges-new-push-on-childhood-hunger.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Fpolitics+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Politics%29

The Dude Is Up for Breakfast: Jeff Bridges’ New Push on Childhood Hunger
Eleanor Clift

For Breakfast After the Bell, the actor and longtime hunger activist hopes to get past the political rancor to get food to more kids in need in America’s classrooms.



Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges has never been to Arkansas, a state that ranks among the worst for childhood hunger and is a long way from Hollywood geographically and culturally. Bridges will make his first trip there Monday to highlight a new initiative dubbed Breakfast After the Bell, which has boosted the percentage of kids in Arkansas getting the morning meal to almost 60 percent of those eligible for the government benefit.

snip//

Bridges signed on in 2010 as the national spokesman for the No Kid Hungry campaign launched by Share Our Strength, but his work on the issue goes back more than three decades. In 1983, he produced a three-hour live television broadcast focusing on world hunger, featuring such stars as Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon, and Burt Lancaster. In 1996, he produced Hidden in America, a film starring his brother Beau, about the plight of the working poor in America. “I’m really proud of that film,” he said. “Sadly, it’s just as applicable today as when I made that film 20 years ago.”

Asked about the hurdles he has encountered over the years in publicizing the issue of hunger, Bridges responds, “It’s not a sexy issue—and people don’t like to think they live in a country where one in five children go hungry. It’s kind of embarrassing for both sides. People struggling with hunger don’t like to admit it, and those of us who are living fun lives don’t like to acknowledge it.

“It’s not that we didn’t know how to end the problem,” he says. “What was missing is the political will, so I asked myself what I was willing to do. I’m involved in the entertainment business, I deal with the media, I can do my part spreading the word.”

Getting attention for a problem that’s hiding in plain sight is what Breakfast After the Bell is attempting to do. The program is “well synced,” according to Shore, with first lady Michelle Obama’s emphasis on nutrition. The first lady last month said, “Research shows that kids who eat breakfast in the classroom perform 17.5 percent better on math tests.” Eating healthy first thing carries over for the rest of the day, says Bridges. “Kids are less likely to grab a Big Gulp and bag of chips.” Those are not intended as fighting words, but they are at the crux of the debate over how we feed our children and whose responsibility it is to see they eat healthily.






GOP leaders ready to quell states’ food stamp revolt


At least 17 states took advantage of the allowance SNAP makes for matching qualifications.
By BILL TOMSON | 3/14/14 12:44 PM EDT Updated: 3/15/14 10:04 AM EDT


Republican leaders are threatening to take congressional action to stop state governors from flouting the food stamp cuts contained in the 2014 farm bill.

The governors of at least six states — New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Montana and Oregon — have now taken measures to protect more than a combined $800 million in annual Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, and more states are expected to follow suit. Their actions threaten — over time — to wipe out the more than $8 billion in cuts over 10 years to the food stamp program that were just passed by Congress as part of the 2014 farm bill.

But those who initially supported the food stamp cuts are warning that retaliatory actions may be coming.

“Since the passage of the farm bill, states have found ways to cheat, once again, on signing up people for food stamps,” Speaker of the House John Boehner told reporters Thursday. “And so I would hope that the House would act to try to stop this cheating and this fraud from continuing.”
more...

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/food-stamp-cuts-104672.html#ixzz2w2yi1ghO

[jwirr]

1. One of my great grandsons eats breakfast after he rides the bus to school. He gets a small snack

before getting on the bus at 7 in the morning. He tells us about children who get on that bus with nothing to eat. I also think that hot lunches are not big enough for older children.

This is just another sign of how bad our economy is and how we are letting the children down.

[babylonsister]

3. I recently saw a meme on FB which I

wish I had saved. It compared the lack of money for children's lunches to plenty of money to train teachers in how to use handguns in classrooms. Priorities?

The rethugs are making the economy worse than it needs to be; apparently hungry kids just.don't.count.

[jwirr]

5. Kids do not count period. This is a sad state of affairs in our nation. How much more hope we would

have if our government were acting like the ones we had in the 60s. And as for those idiots that think black kids are the only ones using these programs they could not be more wrong. This area up here in NE MN is mostly white.

I am so tired of the uncaring world.

[msanthrope]

2. Great work by The Dude. nt

[ananda]

4. I like the Bridges initiative ...

... but at the same time I wish that our government officials
weren't so anti-poor, racist, and pro-corporate.

[mopinko]

6. we should just be feeding all our children at school.

the school lunch program really labels kids, imho. teachers have to deal with who turned in their app, who get a ticket and who has to come up with lunch money.
and for what? in chicago, to select out a handful of kids who are not eligible. who are labeled for all their peers.

just feed them all. little kids should have healthy food available any time.
i think this sends a very different message to kids. a message that we really need to be sending.

[JimDandy]

7. I absolutely agree. Our nation did the right thing

when they required all children to attend school. We need to make sure that, during the time they are required to be there, that they are provided with all the things they need to learn: books, desks, teachers, paper, pencils and FOOD.

[mopinko]

12. especially if you want to close the poverty gap.

i think it goes far beyond just having enough food to fuel your brain cells. abundance grows peace. children look for it in ways we do not appreciate.

[JimDandy]

13. "Abundance grows peace."

Amen to that.

[mopinko]

14. not a prayer, tho. science

developmental neuroscience long ago mapped the effects of poverty and stress on the developing brain. those functions that evolved later in human development, since the come on line last, get stunted.
art, poetry, the level of language that you need to live in peace, as opposed to the signals needed for war/hunting, all come last. only abundance can build them.

science. damn.

[JimDandy]

15. So interesting!

Although I'm an Athiest, I occasionally use phrases from childhood. Glad I did or I might not have learned that. Thnx!

[hootinholler]

17. I wonder if they are stunted permenantly

Or if those centers can be built when abundance is achieved?

[mopinko]

18. can't say as i know that, but

i think there is indirect evidence, ie- i think part of what makes headstart work is the community and support that it builds. i cannot spout the evidence here, which is allegedly shaky. seems like a koch smear to me.

i think especially when there is early intervention, there can still be a lot of growth.
again, indirectly, but don't we all know many arts organizations that save kids lives?
and don't the best of them have choirs, or theatricals, or even trips that give a kid a boost that makes all the difference.
brains grow when you use them. i think as long as you keep learning you dont drool.

[freebrew]

8. Rubin stated it best...

"A society that believes eating is a privilege and not a right, has no right to exist."

[cantbeserious]

9. For Republicans - Children Are Useless Eaters - Best They Starve - Lest They Might Receive SNAP

eom

[Tikki]

10. boner says right there…Eating Is Cheating...

Tikki

[Jefferson23]

11. Good for him..the Republicans are a disgrace.n/t

[hootinholler]

16. The Republican leadership prefers free lunch for feedlot steers over lunches for schoolkids

There is something fundamentally wrong with that notion.