SMART LUNCH, SMART KID: THE FIGHT AGAINST SUMMER HUNGER IN GEORGIA

BY YASMIN GOREJA – Food insecurity is an issue many children in Georgia face. To live in a “food insecure” household means that children have limited access to healthy food and may not know when their next meal will be. Athens is one of the many counties in Georgia that experiences food insecurity and about 25% of children are food insecure in Clarke County.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to volunteer with an organization known as Smart Lunch Smart Kid (SLSK) in Athens, GA for my Health Promotion class. Smart Lunch Smart Kid is run by a nonprofit organization known as Action Ministries. This program in particular focuses on hunger relief and food insecurity for children ages 1-18 years old in different counties throughout Georgia. Many children who receive free or reduced lunches during the school year are unable to have this same benefit over the summertime. Their parents rely on school lunches to feed their child and a burden is placed on them when school is out. SLSK attempts to relieve this burden by directly providing  hot lunches to children every day during the summer break. SLSK serves hundreds of healthy lunches to children Monday through Friday and also provides a weekend bag on Fridays so children have food during the weekends too.

I volunteered with SLSK in Clarke County and was placed in a site that had a number of children who came from low-income households. Instead of parents struggling to find transportation to collect these meals for their children, we brought the meals to the children’s apartment complex.

When I arrived at the site, I would help unload everything from the car. This included both the hot meals that were stored in a warm cooler along with a bag filled with milk, fruit, and snacks. We would also bring out chalk, hula hoops, books, and bubbles for the kids to play with. After unloading everything, children would start to come and that is when I would help pass out the lunches to the kids. We usually stayed at a site for about 40 minutes and then would pack up to go to the second one for the day.

During my time volunteering, I was able to get know some of the children personally. They were from all different backgrounds, races, and personalities. I would sit down and listen to them talk while they were eating their lunch. By doing this for a month, I was exposed to a side of Athens I did not know about.

This service opportunity taught me how important it is to ensure that kids have nutritious meals to eat every day. It also made me aware of how big of an issue food insecurity is here in Georgia. Programs such as SLSK are crucial for places like Athens, GA where there are so many children living below the poverty line. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the SLSK program, and I encourage others to check out this organization along with others that have a similar mission.