Food For Thought
The idea that in some corners of the world, malnutrition is rampant, and children go hungry not because they’ve turned up their noses at what mom has prepared for dinner, but because there is no dinner is a hard concept to grasp when you’re not old enough to watch the evening news. If it can be imagined at all, it’s as some mythical “over there,” a place far removed from the comforts of Western life in the Twenty First Century. The idea that these starving children might live, not in some remote African village, but in the apartment next door is nearly incomprehensible.
My children are lucky. Despite our occasionally precarious situation, they have always been well cared for. We have never been homeless. They have nice clothes and toys to play with. They have always had enough to eat.
Except for today. Today, Diva Girl will not have enough to eat. Today, she will be hungry.
Her lunchbox is sitting here on the counter, not filled and forgotten, but empty and left behind, just like the lunchboxes of all the other students at her school. Today for lunch they aren’t having PB&J or cheese sandwiches or even Lunchables. Today, Sabrina’s school learns what it is to not have enough food. Today they learn about hunger.
Social justice is a very big part of the Catholic curriculum, and it’s something that they want the kids to live, not simply learn. So today they are having a “hunger lunch” as an object lesson in the impact of poverty.
They won’t be completely starved–the school is providing each student with a bowl of soup to get them through the day–but there are no granola bars, cheese and crackers, dunkaroos, or juice boxes. Not even a piece of fruit to help get them through the day. Soup and bread, that’s it. And that’s still more than many children have, when you think about it.
I hope Diva Girl does think about it. I’ve always prided myself in the fact that Sabrina doesn’t know we’re poor, but today when she brings her grumbling belly home I think I’d like her to begin to understand that but for the grace of God, a generous family, and an adequate social safety net, that empty feeling would be something she’d be very, very familiar with by now, and not some sort of radical school experiment.
Comment by ann adams
I wish more schools would do that. Most of us have no idea of what hunger really is.
One day is just a taste of what children all over the world experience.
Posted on October 6, 2007 at 11:24 am
Comment by Nikki
Hi there. I just wanted to say “thanks”. Thanks for having your own site, so that I don’t have to figure out what the heck is going on at iVillage. (What a mess).
Posted on October 9, 2007 at 8:03 am
Comment by Dixie
Wow, i have never heard of a school doing that before. I have often wondered if maybe some Thanksgiving down the road I would take my kids to volunteer at a soup kitchen instead of eating dinner. My husband thinks that is a bit much but my point is how early should you teach your children about compassion for others? I just don’t think it is that bad of an idea. We have so much to be thankful for but a couple of stupid or bad decisions or job loss and anyone could end up with nothing. It is just something that I think about. Am I wrong?
Posted on October 14, 2007 at 10:28 pm