Child Hunger in America

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Understanding Childhood Hunger

Strengthen Your Resolve to End Childhood Hunger in America
Why childhood hunger? Hunger impairs our children's health in significant and long-lasting ways, including physical and mental development.

All of us have at one time or another experienced hunger. We’ve all craved a midnight snack, wanted something salty or needed some chocolate. But there’s a big difference between trying to satisfy a brief craving or stomach growl and wondering where your next meal will come from.

The reality is that more than 12.4 million children in America—that’s one in six—are at risk of hunger. And it’s likely that these children will endure lifelong consequences as a result of having limited access to nutritious foods. In fact, they’re more likely to suffer:

Weaker immune systems
More stomachaches
Headaches
Colds
Ear infections
Fatigue
More hospitalizations
Behavioral difficulties

Impaired performance in school-academically, athletically and socially
A whole host of other lifelong consequences
And hunger doesn’t discriminate. It can affect any child—even those you’d least expect.

The good news: You have the strength to make a difference!
Share Our Strength is working hard to end this invisible hunger. But we can only do it with the help of dedicated, committed volunteers, community organizations—and strong supporters like you.


We are Share Our Strength.

Share Our Strength® is a national organization that works hard to make sure no kid in America grows up hungry.

We weave together a net of community groups, activists and food programs to catch children at risk of hunger and surround them with nutritious food where they live, learn and play.

We work with the culinary industry to create engaging, pioneering programs like Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation®, Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale®, Share Our Strength’s A Tasteful Pursuit®, Share Our Strength’s Great American Dine Out™, and Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline®. Discover how you can get involved »

Why We Do It

We have all experienced hunger at one time or another: We’ve all craved a midnight snack, wanted something salty or needed some chocolate. But there’s a big difference between trying to satisfy a brief craving or stomach growl and wondering when or from where your next meal will come.

More than 12.4 million—one in six—children in America are at risk of hunger. These children will endure lifelong consequences as a result of having limited access to nutritious foods. In fact, they’re more likely to suffer poorer health, fatigue, hospitalizations, behavioral difficulties and impaired performance at school.

And hunger doesn’t discriminate. It can affect any child—even those you’d least expect.

Despite the good efforts of governments, private-sector institutions and everyday Americans, millions of our children still don’t have daily access to the nutritious meals they need to live active, healthy lives.

Strength Makes the Difference

Through the strength of dedicated, committed volunteers to support our fundraising efforts and community organizations that put our resources to good use, Share Our Strength finds childhood hunger where it hides and works hard to end it.

We raise funds through our pioneering culinary events (Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation, Great American Dine Out, A Tasteful Pursuit and Great American Bake Sale) and award grants to support successful organizations across the country that work to provide children and their families with the healthy food they need. Since our inception in 1984, we have raised over $245 million and provided support to more than 1,000 of the most effective hunger-relief organizations around the globe. Get involved with a Share Our Strength event.
We partner with leading corporations through strategic marketing programs that engage their customers, employees and partners around the issue of ending childhood hunger in America. Learn more about our innovative corporate partnerships.
We award grants to organizations throughout the country whose efforts and successes align with the 10 points of our national plan to end childhood hunger. Learn more about our Grants at Work.
We convene partnerships with effective, influential nonprofits that develop their own plans modeled after Share Our Strength’s national plan to end childhood hunger. Learn more about our state partnerships.
We provide education programming through Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline, our awarding winning nutrition education program that teaches families how to prepare healthy, low-cost meals. Learn more about Operation Frontline.
All of this work supports our strategy to end childhood hunger in America.

Driving Social Change — Community Wealth Ventures®, Inc.
Community Wealth Ventures®, Inc. (CWV), a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength, is a consulting firm that leverages the power of market-based approaches to drive social change. CWV helps nonprofit organizations become more self-sustaining by generating revenue through business ventures and corporate partnerships. In addition, the firm helps corporations improve their bottom lines through the design and implementation of community investment