No Deep Thinking, Just Caring, Required
Adults who experienced hunger as children can still call forth the feelings that hunger evoked. The feelings of total emptiness, incredible longing and shame. Surrounded by the sight and smell of food everywhere - on TV commercials and in fast food places - these children remember knowing that something was terribly wrong with their universe.
The scars last, no matter how affluent hungry children grow to be in adulthood.
Adults are always behind a child’s hunger. They are too poor or sometimes too uneducated to pull it together enough to guarantee food for their growing kids. Some are lazy and some are addicted to drugs and alcohol. And some try their very best, and still their children feel hungry.
Yet even if the parents are to blame, there is something morally wrong with any children going hungry in our community. Spokane School District 81 acknowledged this reality recently when it made the decision to expand the district’s summer school food program. All summer - even after summer school ends - children 18 and younger can drop by 26 schools for free breakfast and lunch. About 124,000 meals will be served to children by summer’s end. Spokane’s parks department is also feeding children at 19 parks; both programs are financed by federal and state funds.
The feeding program raises some larger societal questions. Is it the role of schools or a city parks department to provide children food, especially in summer? Don’t they have enough to do already, without this burden? And does providing the food lessen the accountability of the primary people responsible for a child’s well-being - the parents?
On the second point about parents, the food program has some built-in measures to guarantee that parents don’t exploit the system. Parents can accompany their children to the meals but they can’t eat. Children also must eat the food on site. This cuts down on the possibility of taking food home for the parents.
These larger questions can be debated forever but the district and the parks department made a wise choice to feed hungry children in spite of the greater concerns.
Childhood is the time when dreams begin to grow. When the imagination takes shape. When children stretch their minds and muscles through play. They need fuel for all of this to happen well.
In a school or park today, a child eats a simple meal. This child might grow up to be the doctor who saves your life, the teacher who touches eternity, the leader who keeps the community vital. That is why the child needs to eat. It’s as simple as that.