No Kid Hungry NC is on a mission to eliminate childhood hunger

This article was written for our sponsor, Whitley Law Firm.

Hunger is a problem that many people think only exists in foreign countries. But the startling reality is that hunger exists right here in our own backyard, and it affects children the most. This is where No Kid Hungry NC comes in, working to end childhood hunger in North Carolina. With over a decade of experience and partnerships with local businesses and organizations, they are making great strides in connecting healthy meals with children who may not have access to them otherwise.

Hunger doesn't discriminate. It can affect anyone, anywhere, at any time.

"Before the pandemic hit, about 60% of the 1.5 million public school students in North Carolina qualified for free and reduced school meals, so we know there is a big need for these types of meals. Kids depend on healthy nutrition to thrive. We see it as an equity issue," said Andrew Harrell, the program and communication manager for No Kid Hungry NC.

"In a nutshell, No Kid Hungry NC is working to end childhood hunger in North Carolina. We are a partnership with the No Kid Hungry national campaign which is part of the nonprofit Share Our Strength," said Harrell. "We give grants to schools and other community partners that are feeding kids, provide marketing and technical assistance for school nutrition programs, lead nutrition education classes. [We also] promote and celebrate the work of school nutrition professionals and other nutrition professionals who are on the front lines doing the work to feed kids.” Most of the work the organization does is to expand access to federally assisted nutrition programs, such as school lunch, school breakfast, afterschool meals, and summer meals.

One way that No Kid Hungry NC helps connect children to nutritious food is by establishing models for breakfast in the classroom in schools.

"Another angle we take is trying to come up with innovative ways to serve these meals, especially school breakfast,” Harrell said. This program allows students to eat breakfast at school instead of rushing to class. "Especially among younger kids, when you have your entire class in homeroom eating a meal together it does a lot to address that stigma and it does a lot to create a community feeling and improve social and emotional outcomes for these children.

"We have been working hard this fall because this school year is the first school year where meals will not be available at no cost to all students [since before the pandemic]. We have been educating families about free and reduced-cost school forms and increasing access to these no-cost healthy school meals to as many families as we can," said Harrell. "With inflation affecting things like housing, food, and transportation costs we know a lot of families have to make tough choices. It is more important than ever to provide these healthy meals."

No Kid Hungry NC also provides families with resources like a text service that helps them find healthy meals for their children during the summer months. Families can text the word 'food' or 'comida' to 304-304 for information about where they can find free meals for their kids when school is out of session. This service was also used during the pandemic so families had ways to find healthy meals for their children.

Whitley Law Firm is one of the local businesses that support No Kid Hungry NC.

"The work that they are doing is bringing awareness and educating people out there to the resources available beyond the ones you usually think of, like food banks. It's making our community better and the donation that businesses give can go miles towards helping kids not go hungry in North Carolina. No Kid Hungry is a relatively new organization that started in 2011, and we really don't think about child hunger happening in our community. I wanted to bring it back to our community and what we need to do to help kids and reduce hunger in our community. Donations can go much further within these hyper-local organizations," said Whitley.

"We are a small group of people working together on this mission and we appreciate all the support we can get," said Harrell.

This article was written for our sponsor, Whitley Law Firm.