Snapshot Chronicles

Susan Getgood's personal blog

  • Home
  • About Snapshot Chronicles
  • Privacy & Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy
  • Getgood.Com

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

Kids, online relationships, digital safety and a little Minecraft

07.02.2014 by Susan Getgood //

Last month, I had the privilege to attend the New York Women in Communications (@nywici) Cocktails & Conversations panel on The Future of Communications. Moderated by the group’s outgoing president and NY PR agency head Liz Kaplow, the panel featured BlogHer CEO Lisa Stone, Dana Points from Parents and American Baby and Sarah Davanzo from ad agency Sparks & Honey. The conversation ranged across a number of topics, including a survey conducted jointly by BlogHer and NYWICI on women’s attitudes toward technology, but the panel really dug into to the issue of our children’s use of technology, with varying points of view about how to manage it and whether so much tech was good or bad for child development, interpersonal relationships and future success in life.

BlogHer CEO Lisa Stone during NYWICI panel
Lisa Stone during the NYWICI panel

I’m the parent of a 14 year old young man who is deeply engaged in the online gaming world and has been digitally active since he was barely out of diapers. I also have a professional background in the online safety industry; I worked at Cyber Patrol and SurfControl for 10 years (1994-2004), during which time I testified about online safety in Congress and at the FTC, represented my company at an OECD workshop in Paris, and was generally deeply involved in the discussion/debate about children’s use of the Internet. Safe to say I have strong, and I would say fairly well informed, opinions about children’s use of technology. None of which I try to impose on anyone but happy to share.

How much is too much? What is too much? Are we spending too much time in front of the screen? To the detriment of our personal relationships?

This is tricky, because how you answer depends on how you value your relationships, and specifically the differentiation you apply to online versus offline friends. As a society, we still tend to place more value on the people we know in the physical world, our “real life” friends, but why? Why is someone you’ve shaken the physical hand of inherently more valuable as a friend merely because you have been geographically co-located? The long tail when applied to personal relationships implies that we are now able to “meet” people “like us” from all over the world. Are these people any less our friends?

This has become a very robust and long lasting online conversation. Our rule at home is that Doug needs to spend some time every day with the family, and I regularly plan offline activities for us including day trips to NYC and other local attractions, but his online friends are just as much his friends as anyone he might meet in “meat space.” I feel the same way about quite a few friends that I have never actually met in person, but have been chatting with online for 10 years or more.

For some people, the safety of online is what permits friendships to develop, and not just when it comes to online dating. For folks who are even remotely socially awkward or uncomfortable in social situations, online is a safe haven for trying on personas and navigating the white water of developing friendships. For that alone, gaming is a gift. I firmly believe that the demands of these environments, including the need to understand the rules and social mores within the game, help kids develop many necessary social and coping skills. Far from preventing development, games foster it.

What about porn? 

What about it? Seriously, there is a ton of bad shit on the Internet, and as parents we do want to protect our kids from inadvertently accessing inappropriate material, at home and at school.

There are two lines of defense. Teach your children well is first and foremost. Your good relationship with your child, and mutual trust, is probably the best parenting tool we have in general. As a secondary safeguard, especially when your kids are young, there is no harm in using filtering software to block inappropriate content. Just know that even if it could find and block all the “bad” web content, it can’t protect your child from everything. Cyberbullying and sexting don’t have URLs that a filter can block. Teaching your child to recognize, avoid, handle and report these sorts of things is best defense. As an aside, know that while there are online predators who lure children in chat rooms and so forth, I firmly believe the bigger danger is bullying and bad behavior from the people we know, not the bogeyman under the bed.

Two other tips. Keep the Internet connected machines in family rooms, not in children’s bedrooms, and most important, be genuinely interested in what your kids do online. Even if it is not your cup of tea. The best thing that can happen to you is your kid WANTS to show you the mod he created for his game or the dumb thing he found on a video sharing site. Don’t squander that opportunity.

I’m not. This July 12 and 13, I will be spending the weekend with Doug at MineOrama in New York City. The minute he heard about the convention, he wanted to go so he could meet other Minecraft enthusiasts in person. I *have* to attend because he is less than 16 years old, so I can’t just drop and go, but I am actually looking forward to the opportunity to spend time with him in his world. It’ll be fun, and you can be sure I will tell you all about it.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with my first exposure to Minecraft about three and a half years ago. My son was playing on his laptop and I was working at my desk when I heard this song emerging from his speakers. I thought for the life of me they were singing “Digging the whores. Diggy diggy whores.” Needless to say I was a little freaked out. Turns out it was “holes, Mom, holes.”

Categories // Blogging, BlogHer, Family, Online safety Tags // BlogHer, minecraft, online safety

2013. So far a mixed bag. With an extra helping of awful.

03.14.2013 by Susan Getgood //

Well, 2013, so far you are a mixed bag.

There have been some good moments.

Douglas and I had a great weekend trip into NYC in January. We saw Blue Man Group, ate at a terrific restaurant in the East Village (The Smith) and went to the Harry Potter exhibit at Discovery Times Square.

Not sure if they do this at other venues, but if you’ve ever been to a Blue Man show in NY, you may recall the audience warm-up bit at the beginning where a few audience member names are featured on an LCD display. Starts out as though they are calling attention to celebrities in the audience and asking the rest to congratulate or thank the celebrity. When we went, the first two were purportedly an Olympic Curling champion and a scientist with the human genome project.

The last one? Well, that was Douglas! Digging around the FAQ on the Blue Man website for the show running time to plan our dinner reservation, I had seen the notation about submitting a name for the LCD. There was no guarantee they would use Doug’s name but the chances seemed good, as I set up the situation for them; a 12 year boy attending with his mom seemed tailor-made for some laughs.

It met all my expectations. As the LCD crawled with his name, it noted (and I paraphrase because you can’t take pictures): Douglas is a person with no particular skills or talents, so he really needs our love. Tell Douglas “we love you.” At which point the whole audience yells “We love you Douglas.” He was naturally mortified that I would do this to him, making it all the sweeter, but deep down, even though  he’ll never admit it, I think he also was secretly a little pleased. Every so often it’s nice to be the special one.

The other personal highlight of the year to date? Douglas won the school science fair. First place for 6th & 7th grade and First overall. His project, entitled “Produce Power” explored which fruits and vegetables would make the best “battery” for a digital clock.  Here’s the mad scientist presenting his project at the fair last week:

And, while not quite a highlight, we finally resolved the divorce. There is still a lot of financial mess to deal with, especially regarding the real estate, but the divorce was granted February 13th and will be final in mid-May. Ironic, that my first full day as a formerly-married person was Valentine’s Day.

I won’t write much more about the divorce here or elsewhere, but of late I have been reflecting on life and relationships quite a bit. It’s not quite ironic, but there is something “funny sad” about the trajectory that so many of us late Boomers/early GenXers seem to be on, if my Facebook feed is any indication.

We spent our early adulthood building our careers, in no tremendous hurry to “settle down.” In fact, until my mid-30s, I never really thought I would get married.

And then we did enter into a long-term domestic partnership (including marriage and children). We thought we were “safe” because we had waited. We didn’t make youthful mistakes in our partner choice. We were older, established. We wouldn’t outgrow each other.

Except no. That’s not what happened. There are no guarantees in life. So now in the back third of my adult life, I am experiencing my third marital status – divorced. I’m not sad or happy. Just relieved to be moving on.

Reva watches Westminster (2007)

And now the extra helping of awful. We learned this week that my dear darling Reva, Ch. Blueberry’s Best Served Cold, has cancer and there isn’t really anything we can do about it. There are three different tumors, so even if we could deal with the worst one without going bankrupt, one of the others would get her sooner rather than later.

We are devastated. She is only 8-1/2 years old, and I thought I had years left with her. Right now, she is pretty chipper and her normal self, so we are taking each day one day at a time. But things could go quickly. We just don’t know.

This, this alone, moves 2013 into the column of officially sucking. Because no matter what good things happen, and I am hopeful some will, nothing will make up for losing her.

That’s all I am going to write about this here until she does pass. Because it devastates me just to type the words, and I need to stop crying.

I’m sure by this point you do too (and thanks for sticking with this post) so please enjoy this video from a few years ago of Reva and her son Cash playing with “Clocky.” Reva is the larger blacker dog; Cash was just a puppy. And remember every day is a gift.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Categories // Dogs, Douglas, Family, General, Theater, Travel

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 7
  • Next Page »

Travel Posts

chicken and waffles with egg and syrup

Where to go, what to eat when in Philadelphia with kids

Spring has sprung, and I’m out and about

More Posts from this Category

Recipes

Coconut Custard Pie

It’s been a while — a LONG while, but I’m ready to start blogging again. Starting with some original recipes I created as part of a Monthly Baking Class I just took — Baking with Christina Tosi of Milk Bar fame I created this pie to evoke the memory of a Coconut Custard Pie I […]

Potato Galette Recipe

On today’s menu, Potato Galette. Super easy. All you need for 4 generous servings: 2 large potatoes, olive oil, salt and shredded cheese of your choice. Slice the potatoes very thin. I use a mandoline. Toss with olive oil and salt, some herbs if you wish, and then layer in a pie plate, alternating a […]

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

More Posts from this Category

Search

Posts

  • Where to go, what to eat when in Philadelphia with kids
  • Coconut Custard Pie
  • To Cash
  • Election Notebook (2016): Hillary at the Apollo, Trump’s abortion remarks and Maddow rocks the house
  • Childhood Hunger in America: What you can do to help

Archive

Social

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Copyright © 2023 · Modern Studio Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
 

Loading Comments...