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ON FOOD: Feeding off of one another: Industry helps hungry kids through Share our Strength


By Pamela  Parseghian

(Dec. 22, 2008) One of every two children in Washington, D.C., is hungry, said Claudia Morris, director of the Capital Area Foodbank there. Nationwide, one in every six kids is “at risk of hunger,” said Bill Shore, founder of Share Our Strength, at the fundraising organization’s annual conference in Washington.

“At risk of hunger,” means those young people may not know where their next meal is coming from. Within the last few years SOS has narrowed its mission from working to end general hunger in the United States to concentrating on eradicating childhood hungry, partly because it’s a more attainable goal.

But even that relatively easier mission of feeding 12 million hungry kids is monumental. The cause greatly benefits from the restaurant industry’s support of a variety of programs.

Share Our Strength’s Great American Dine Out, during which participating restaurants donated a portion of sales to fight childhood hunger, now includes more than 4,000 restaurants.

Additionally, the fifth season of SOS’s Tasteful Pursuit fundraising dinners begins in January at the Lever House restaurant in Manhattan, under the direction of chef Bradford Thompson, who is the organization’s national spokesperson this year. The lineup of celebrity chefs who also are planning to hold Tasteful Pursuit dinners include Daniel Boulud, Charlie Palmer, Michael Symon and Michel Richard.

Most notably, for more than 20 years thousands of restaurants donated delicious dishes to SOS’s 46 Taste of the Nation events around the country. Taste of the Nation has raised more than $70 million since its inception.

As an organizer of a local Taste of the Nation for the last decade, I would have given up years ago if I hadn’t felt the encouragement of local and national leaders—mostly restaurant industry people. The mission is overwhelming and getting more daunting as the economy tanks and number of hungry people rises.

It is hard to continue drumming up interest in the hidden-hunger problem. How many people see bony children with bloated empty stomachs in the U.S.? Also, few of us know anyone who’s hungry.

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