Hungry Kids Struggle
With one in four children in Arizona struggling with hunger, the long-term impact of hunger on education is lower classroom achievement and, ultimately, not being fully prepared for the workforce.
The second of five informational and videos in the #ImagineASolution hunger awareness campaign, to be released the week of Oct. 26 at azcaa.org and azfoodbanks.org, addresses the challenges that students, teachers and administrators deal with from the impact of hunger.
“Hungry kids don’t do well in school. That’s a fact,” said Balz School District Superintendent Dr. Jeffrey J. Smith, who discusses the issue in the video. “We saw a dramatic upward shift in classroom success in our schools when we started providing our students with breakfast. There’s a very strong message there.”
Smith is among a diverse group of community leaders featured in the #ImagineaSolution hunger awareness campaign presented by the Arizona Community Action Association (ACAA) and the Association of Arizona Food Banks (AAFB). The videos are designed to “start a very serious statewide conversation about how we can solve the problem of hunger and address the bigger-picture challenge of poverty, as individuals and communities,” said ACAA Executive Director Cynthia Zwick. “We are looking for solutions from throughout Arizona.”
Two of the three videos that will follow over the next six months will focus on hunger’s impact on the economy and overall health. The final video describes the SNAP program (formerly food stamps), a critical lifeline for families to help put food on the table as well as “‘demythifying’ misperceptions about SNAP, which serves more than 1 million Arizonans efficiently and cost effectively,” Zwick said.
The campaign also features a series of photos and quotes collected during “man-on-the-street” interviews asking people around the state their thoughts on solving hunger and how they “#ImagineaSolution.”
Among those appearing in the #ImagineaSolution videos are Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema, whose family relied on SNAP and their church after her stepfather lost his job; Bank of America Arizona Market President Benito Almanza, who grew up with his family working the farm fields of California; Dr. Jeffrey J. Smith, Superintendent of the Balsz School District, one of the poorest in the state; pediatrician Dr. Cody Conklin; Kris Volcheck, DDS, MBA, Executive Director of the CASS Dental Clinic for the Homeless and The Parsons Center for Pediatric Dentistry at Murphy; Jennifer Kaufman, Vice President of Marketing for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona; Tim McCabe, President, Arizona Food Marketing Alliance; and Linda Tirado, author and founder of Bootstrap Industries, among others.
“We want the community to become involved in solving this challenge because it affects all of us,” said Angie Rodgers, AAFB president and CEO. “We know this is not an easy problem to solve and the more minds and ideas that engage with us, the better.”
To see the videos, produced by Direct Current Productions of Phoenix, for more information about the campaign and for information about how to get involved, visit azcaa.org or azfoodbanks.org.
