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Childhood Hunger in America: What you can do to help

12.01.2014 by Susan Getgood //

 

Did you know 1 in 5 children in the United States don’t get enough to eat? That’s 18,000 school busses full of kids. Or if, in this season of gridiron rivalries, football metaphors do it for you, 223 football stadiums full of fans.

I live and work in cities —Bridgeport CT and New York — but most of the poverty I see in my daily commute is the adult variety. While I know that child hunger is a problem in America, it’s largely intellectual knowledge. For many, myself included, we aren’t as motivated to take action when something isn’t tangibly real. We give to the charities that impact the people around us, or that have helped personally at some time in our lives.

In our comfortable middle-class lives, it’s hard to even understand hunger. Real hunger. Not just “skipped lunch” or “fasting for a colonoscopy” hungry.

Unilever Project Sunlight aims to change all that by giving us both the tools we need to better understand childhood hunger, and with its downloadable #ShareAMeal toolkit, concrete suggestions for ways we can help, including:

  • help a family in your own neighborhood by hosting a community potluck or sending an extra lunch to school with your child;
  • volunteer at a local food bank;
  • host a virtual food drive;
  • make a donation to Feeding America.

Get your kids involved.

A good way to make hunger — real hunger — more tangible for them while you help families in need in your community is to do the same activity as the kids in the Hatch Project Hunger video above. Set a budget, say $40, and go food shopping for a family of four for a week, then donate the food to your local food bank. Be sure to check in advance for any restrictions; some organizations aren’t equipped to handle too many perishables, and may prefer dry or canned goods.

Start by watching the Hatch video with your kids, and downloading the #ShareAMeal toolkit, and then talk it over with them. How would they like to help?

In my family, we are going to start with a donation to Feeding America. If that’s all you have time for right now, please join us! It’s what we can do, right now, and that’s better than waiting to do anything until you have more time to volunteer. I’d love to hear what you’ve decided to do in my comments.

About SheKnows’ Hatch, the Hatch Hunger Project and Unilever Project Sunlight:

SheKnows’ Hatch teamed with Unilever Project Sunlight to help families build awareness and take action around child hunger in America. The facts are startling: 16 million kids living in the United States don’t know where their next meal is coming from. That equates to one in every five children – enough to fill 18,000 school buses and 223 football stadiums. On average, those who live in food-insecure households have only $36.50 to spend on groceries every week. That means that 80 percent of children may not understand the everyday struggle their peers – many of whom could be their own friends or neighbors – confront when there’s not enough food on the table. The Hatch Hunger and Project Sunlight video and workshop aims to create empathy by showing kids what it means to shop for healthy, filling meals for an entire week on a thrifty budget. It teaches important math and teamwork skills. Finally, it is about action, empowering kids to have a positive impact on their community to Share A Meal with a family in need and donating food and canned goods to local food banks.

Categories // Charity, Family, Sponsored

A refreshing change from Super Bowl ads – Pepsi’s Refresh Project

02.05.2010 by Susan Getgood //

cross posted to Marketing Roadmaps

The Super Bowl is pretty much the only athletic contest in the world where the television advertisements during the event get nearly as much media coverage as the event itself. Likewise the run-up and hype of the commercials. Will the network will sell all the space? Who will run ads, how much will they pay and what will they promote?

Before the ads even run, the pundits are postulating and after, they dissect them.

It’s a bit obscene really — and full disclosure, I’ve played the game on my blog in past years.

This year, though, the real news is who is NOT advertising during the Super Bowl. Instead of spending a hefty chunk of change on a few spots during the football game, Pepsi launched the Pepsi Refresh Project. For the next year,  the company is giving away $1.3 million dollars per month to community development projects submitted and selected online by the public.

Anyone can submit a grant. Pepsi will accept 1000 every month, and the public can vote for up to 10 projects every day.

Of course, the company is getting a lot of media, and social media, coverage for the campaign, and I imagine they are also spending a pretty penny on the infrastructure to support the project with their ad, PR and interactive agencies. I’m sure they have high expectations for positive revenue as well as brand awareness results from the project.

What makes this campaign so exciting is the scale of the grants. Other companies have done similar projects to fund charities through community submission and vote. For example American Express. But I can’t think of anything from corporate America that matches the scale of Pepsi Refresh.

It is truly refreshing to see a company do so much potential good. I’ve got no problem if they “do good” as a result.

In fact, I’d love to see more copycats.

Who’s next?

Categories // Advertising, Charity

Have a piece of Give-Thanks Pie

11.06.2009 by Susan Getgood //

iStock_pie“When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it’s not, mmmmmmmm, boy.” — Jack Handy

We love pie all year round. Apple. Cherry. Peach. Pecan. Blueberry. Oh Blueberry. But somehow pie in the fall has a special place in our hearts. Apple. Squash. Pecan. Pumpkin.  PIE!

I love to bake, so messing around with crust is more of a challenge than a nuisance. But, if you are in the Greater Boston area, and love pie but not making them, consider ordering your Thanksgiving pie from Pie in the Sky.

Pie in the Sky is an annual project of Community Servings, a local charity that provides  meals for the critically ill and their families. Pies are donated by local bakers, including some of the area’s best restaurants. Last year, the project raised $380,000.

Pies cost $25.00 each. The deadline for ordering is November 18th, and you can pick up your pie at one of 45 locations in the Greater Boston area on Wednesday November 25th.

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Categories // Charity, Holiday

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