Now that kids are officially back in school, it's a great time to start thinking about how to get students involved in something positive and larger than themselves. Raising awareness about hunger in your community--especially child hunger--is an important cause that schools and students can help make an immediate difference. Not only will it benefit the people and kids in your community who need the food, but it is also a phenomenal educational experience for kids. Kids will have an opportunity to learn about hunger in their own community, develop leadership skills, and feel a closer bond to their community.





Everything you need to get your school started can be found at SchoolsFightHunger.org-- an amazing organization started in August, 2010 that aims to bring together America’s schools and school families around the cause of ending childhood hunger. It is the first and primary initiative of Schools Serve, the national 501(c)3 dedicated to promoting impactful service programs at schools across the country.

Some things that kids can do include, bake sales, volunteering at a local food bank, and of course--a food drive. Even though Lucas is not in school yet, I plan on reaching out to one of my local schools to help get them involved with SchoolsFightHunger.org and help host a food drive. The good news is that hosting a school food drive and getting schools involved is actually pretty simple. Schools Fight Hunger will even send you a free tool kit with ideas and tips on how to host a successful food drive. Sign up HERE.

As you guys know, ConAgra Foods has made the food drive even simpler with their Fall Child Hunger Ends Here program! They have partnered with Feeding America, Schools Fight Hunger and thousands of schools across the country to donate 5 million meals to Feeding America during this 2011-2012 school year. The program encourages schools to participate in a nationwide food and ConAgra Foods UPC label drive that aims to provide meals to children facing hunger in America.






From now through December, there are two simple ways schools, parents and students can help end child hunger in their own communities:


o Food Drives – Help host or participate in school-sponsored food drives to collect food to be donated to local food banks in each community. ConAgra has set a goal of collecting 2 million pounds of food through the Child Hunger Ends Here partnership with Schools Fight Hunger to donate to local food banks across the country.
o Collect UPCs – Parents can help students collect UPC codes from participating ConAgra Foods brands. For each UPC collected, ConAgra Foods will donate one meal to Feeding America – the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.

Can you imagine the kind of impact it would make if your school hosted a food drive and everyone brought in one of the products from the Child Hunger Ends Here program??? Not only would it be immediate food for the people in need in your community, but it would also equal one meal for every UPC code collected. That is like having a DOUBLE food drive!

Parents and teachers can visit ChildHungerEndsHere.com to register their school for the program. Each school that participates will be entered for a chance to win one of several prizes, including the grand prize – $10,000 to fund school field trips.

Collect UPCs from these participating ConAgra Foods brands:
o Banquet
o Chef Boyardee
o Healthy Choice
o Hunt’s
o Marie Callender’s
o Manwich
o Orville Redenbacher’s
o Peter Pan
o Snack Pack