School’s out for the summer.  While you may be enjoying the non-scheduled days, warm weather, and relaxation keep in mind this alarming statistic:

During the school year, 21.5 million children rely on free or reduced-price meals to help them keep from going hungry. When school is out, only 2.3 million children participate in the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). This means there are millions of children at an increased risk of hunger during the summer. You can help by purchasing participating ConAgra Foods products and entering those codes to trigger meal donations.

In our local school district, two of our schools offer a free lunch to ALL children aged 18 and under through a Summer Feeding Program.  For 1-1.5 hours, Monday through Friday for 4 weeks during the summer, kids can go have a balanced meal I think it’s wonderful.  The two school marquees advertise this opportunity, if your area does the same, spread the word it may help out a family that really needs it!

I am partnering with ConAgra Foods and the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign!  We want to end hunger in America and help donate up to 3 million meals to Feeding America and it’s really so easy to join us!

How can YOU help feed a child this summer? 

• You can participate by looking for the red pushpin in grocery stores and purchasing specifically marked packages of 19 select ConAgra Foods brands. then visit www.facebook.com/ChildHungerEndsHere or www.ChildHungerEndsHere.com and enter the eight-digit code found on the package.  For every code entered by 8/31/13, ConAgra Foods will donate the monetary equivalent of one meal to Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.  You can also enter your zip code to submit your local Feeding America food bank into a competition for an 80,000-meal donation.
• Take this SURVEY gauging your knowledge on the specifics of Child Hunger Ends Here.
• Enter you zip code at www.ChildHungerEndsHere.com to help  support your local food bank.  Every time you enter an 8-digit product code at ChildHungerEndsHere.com, you also have the option to submit a zip code and give your local food bank a chance to receive the monetary equivalent of 80,000 meals from the total donations.
• Locate your local food bank, http://feedingamerica.org/foodbank-results.aspx and volunteer with your family. Feeding America benefits from the unique relationship between our 202 local member food banks at the front lines of hunger relief and the central efforts of our national office.

Encourage your children by relating something they may know about:  download songs from these celebrity ambassadors like Carly Rae Jepsen, Tori Kelly, Amber Riley, Cody Simpson who are lending their support to ending childhood hunger.

Find out more by connection with the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign on Twitter and on Facebook.

All opinions my own, I wrote this post as part of an Ambassador program with The Motherhood.

Sometimes I speak the words, “have you done nothing but eat all day?” to my children when they run back and forth to the kitchen on the weekends.  We provide meals and snacks to them all day, everyday, it’s shocking how much they continue to rummage the cupboards and fridge for just one more bite.  My middle child is 12 and growing like a weed, so it seems we’re grocery shopping every other day to keep up to his eating habits alone.   That being said, I often take for granted the fact that this food is available to my children all the time, when they want it.  That is sadly not the case for 20% of the children in this country. Child hunger is an epidemic today, in the United States, and because it’s invisible it’s one that goes unnoticed.  Child hunger is not an issue of poverty. With more than 1 in 5 children suffering from food insecurity – that’snearly 17 million children – we know that hungry kids are in our schools, our neighborhoods and even right next door. I am partnering with ConAgra Foods and the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign!  We want to end hunger in America and help donate up to 3 million meals to Feeding America and it’s really so easy to join us!  Celebrity support for Child Hunger Ends Here has been huge, musicians like Cody Simpson, Amber Riley, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Tori Kelly have banded together to help us with this campaign.  Check out  “Fill a Heart” by Cody Simpson and Amber Riley – http://www.childhungerendshere.com/voicesForHope.html. For anybody who wants to make an immediate impact, use the codes found on participating packages of ConAgra Foods products, look for that big red pushpin on the package. Many products including: Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Healthy Choice, Hunt’s, Marie Callendar’s, Manwich, Orville Redenbacher, Peter Pan, Snack Pack are some you probably already have in your cabinet or buy on a regular basis!

Enter one code online, www.ChildHungerEndsHere.com to donate one meal.  It’s that simple!

• You can participate by looking for the red pushpin in grocery stores and purchasing specifically marked packages of 19 select ConAgra Foods brands. • Then, by visiting www.facebook.com/ChildHungerEndsHere or www.ChildHungerEndsHere.com, you can enter the eight-digit code found on the package. • For every code entered by 8/31/13, ConAgra Foods will donate the monetary equivalent of one meal to Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. • You can also enter your zip code to submit your local Feeding America food bank into a competition for an 80,000-meal donation. – At the end of the campaign, ten food banks in the zip codes with the most entries will receive the additional donation. Join us, won’t you? I am a blog ambassador for Child Hunger Ends Here, all opinions are my own!