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January 30, 2010

Anonymous The Kokomo Tribune Sat Jan 30, 2010, 10:45 PM EST

THE ISSUE:The “buddy bags” program.

OUR VIEW:For just $11 per month, you can provide a weekend of food for a child.

Pastor Jeff Newton tells a story that causes one pause. After Deanna Ancil heard it, it broke her heart.

On a Sunday evening in 2006, Trinity United Methodist Church hosted a dinner. Newton, a part-time pastor at Trinity and Cassville United Methodist, watched as a young boy ate four hot dogs.

You must be hungry, Newton said to the boy. The boy said he hadn’t eaten lunch.

Did you have breakfast, Newton asked? The boy said no.

Did you have dinner Saturday, Newton asked? The boy said no.

After more questions, Newton learned the boy hadn’t eaten all weekend. His last meal was lunch on Friday at school.

“I don’t believe anyone in Kokomo should be hungry,” Ancil told us in September. “There is no reason for hunger in this community.”

Newton, executive director of Kokomo Urban Outreach, started a pilot program that provided a weekend’s worth of food for children receiving free and reduced-price lunches at Elwood Haynes Elementary School in May 2007. The bags containing enough food for six meals were delivered on Friday.

It was a success. Now, in its second full year, Urban Outreach’s “buddy bags” program delivers food for 310 Elwood Haynes students at the end of each week.

Earlier this month, students at Eastern Elementary began receiving buddy bags. Urban Outreach plans to add Maple Crest Elementary students this Friday and hopes to include Western Schools in March.

Newton believes Urban Outreach and its volunteers could be giving buddy bags to as many as 700 children each week, providing 4,200 meals.

Not every child receiving a buddy bag goes without food all weekend. But most live with “food insecurity” – a limited availability of food. According to Urban Outreach, 11 percent of Kokomo households experienced food insecurity in 2006. And 4 percent – 1,416 households – suffered chronic hunger four years ago.

Since the start of the recession in 2007, Ancil, president of Project E.A.T. (Everybody Ate Today), has seen more families and children suffer food insecurity.

Please get involved. No one in Kokomo should be hungry.

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