The Last Hope for Hungry Kids (afterschool programs providing food)

[MountainLaurel]

Score another one for "the greatest country in the world" :puke:

The budding tennis players at an after-school program in Southeast Washington used to be picky eaters, discarding their fruit or complaining if their sandwiches had strawberry jelly instead of grape.

Now, program director Cora Masters Barry says, they eat everything set in front of them -- and then some.

"They're eating two or three sandwiches and packing others in their backpacks," said Barry, who runs the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center on Mississippi Avenue. "What we have is never, never enough."

As the recession forces more families into poverty, a growing number of after-school programs have taken on a crucial but unfamiliar role as emergency food providers for the low-income children they serve. Organizations unaccustomed to serving anything more than granola bars are finding themselves to be the last line of defense against children going hungry at night.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052903130.html

[Lasher]

1. Heartbreaking.

In my area lots of kids depend like this on breakfast and lunch at the local grade schools. It's been that way for years. Most children qualify for free meals because their parents' incomes are so low. The poor ones really put it away, particularly at breakfast. Once a week we bag up donated snacks and deliver them to these schools so all the kids can take one home. There are no after-school food programs there unless you want to include that. I wonder how these little guys get to eat while they're off for the summer.

The recession hasn't hit here as hard as in other areas of the nation but the poverty level has always been high all my life. Think of this the next time someone tells you how wonderful the US would be without social programs.