In America, more than 49 million people–including nearly 17 million children–go hungry every day. That’s a heartbreaking one in five kids who will go to sleep with bellies growling tonight. In honor of National Food Day, The Daily Meal has compiled 44 things you can do to fight hunger. Writes the food and drink site:
Some are as simple as clicking a link; others are as time-consuming and collaborative as planting and tending a garden. There are products to buy, places to donate, things to watch. You can even make a contribution by going bowling, getting a haircut, eating a candy bar. All these actions will, to a greater or lesser extent, put food on somebody’s table.
Some of the most compelling endeavors include City Harvest’s Skip Lunch Fight Hunger, which asks people to take their lunch to work and donate the money they save to hunger initiatives; Food Forward, a Los Angeles program to glean and distribute unused local fruit from private homes and public spaces; Schools Fight Hunger, which enlists students and teachers to plant gardens and donate the harvest to local food banks; and Move for Hunger, a service that picks up nonperishable food items that might otherwise be thrown away in a move.
If you’re looking for something off the beaten path, try grape stomping or skateboarding to eradicate hunger. And did you know that Meals on Wheels is still in going strong and looking for folks to prepare or deliver meals? According to their website, this group–numbering between 800,000 and 1.7 million individuals–is the nation’s biggest volunteer army.
Check out The Daily Meal‘s full list for more ideas on combating food insecurity, and don’t miss their slideshow “10 American Cities That Are Going Hungry.” Then be thankful when you sit down with your fork, knife, and spoon at the dinner table tonight.
Source: The Daily Meal
Image by whitneyinchicago, licensed under Creative Commons.
