Evergreen Elementary Helps Fight World Hunger!

It's not every day that you and your students get the opportunity to make an impact, so we were very excited at Evergreen Elementary when we were contacted to host a "Change Our World" kickoff event.

Our school is located in Spanaway, Washington, and is part of the Bethel School District. With nearly 700 kids in kindergarten through sixth grade, we held two assemblies for our students, with the third through sixth graders going first, to introduce them to “Change Our World” and what it means.

On January 17, 2008, Gene White, President of Global Child Nutrition Foundation, and Mary Begalle, National Marketing Manager—School Foodservice and Pat McCoy, Vice President School Foodservice, from Schwan’s Food Service, Inc., visited our school and spoke to the students about “Change Our World” and GCNF.

First, our students watched the “Neenah Makes a Difference” video, which made them sit up and take notice.

After the video Mr. Graham, our principal, got the students excited about the assembly and introduced our great speakers for the day.

Gene did a great job explaining to the students that there are many children around the world who do not have the opportunities we take for granted—going to school every day and having a nutritious meal while we are here.

She told the students that GCNF is working to end global child hunger by creating self-sustaining school nutrition programs in communities that have none.

After Gene spoke, Pat got the students excited about the “Change Our World” campaign, telling them how each small donation adds up and makes a difference.

After Pat talked to the students, Mrs. Benavidez, our physical education teacher, grabbed a bright red plastic fireman’s helmet and began passing it around. The students were so excited that they quickly helped fill the helmet.

When it reached the front of the room, our principal, Mr. Graham, placed $20 in the helmet and challenged me to match it. When I opened my wallet, I only had $5, which turned out to be great because we were able to turn the challenge into a mini math quiz, asking the students how much I needed to bring the next day to match Mr. Graham.

They were right when they said $15.

Our school isn’t done yet. We want to see what kind of difference we can make for GCNF before January is over. On Tuesday, January 29, 2008, we are building the largest pizza in our community by having the students toss coins into a circle to represent pizza toppings and we have another challenge for our students.

Each time a student makes a donation, their name goes on a donation coin that is put on the wall in the gym. The challenge to our students is if they can make the coins reach all the way around the gym, they get to have a Disney Day, where they can dress up as their favorite character. At the assembly, Mr. Graham and I will wear Disney ties and have students cut them off in celebration of their efforts.

As of January 25, 2008, we have nearly reached our goal of donating $1,100 to deserving children around the world. What an honor to join efforts with schools and other organizations across America in an effort to end world hunger for all children!

I would like to thank Gene White, president of Global Child Nutrition Foundation, and Mary Begalle, Pat McCoy, and Bonnie Conger from Schwan’s Food Service, Inc. along with Lincoln Pierce, our Child Nutrition Director, for this unique opportunity.

It was humbling to see how quickly our staff, students, and community rallied to the aid of less fortunate children around the world! We learned that when we donated our change in an effort to change the world, a far greater change took place in our own hearts!

It’s our hope that our students have learned that by working together, we can all make a difference.

Jay Brower
Assistant Principal
Evergreen Elementary
Bethel School District

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April Declared Global Child Nutrition Month

This past month, on December 14th, 2007, the School Nutrition Association (SNA) and the Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF) announced the establishment of April 2008 as Global Child Nutrition Month.

School nutrition professionals are encouraged to take one day, one week or all month to partner with students and teachers in an effort to raise awareness about the ravages of hunger among children around the globe and here in the United States. This observance is also an opportunity to raise awareness about the solutions to global hunger and poverty.

Among these are the school-based feeding program initiatives supported by GCNF. At any given moment, as many as 300 million of the world's children are trapped in the grinding cycle of poverty and hunger. According to the World Food Programme, 130 million of these children do not attend school; and among those who do, most do not receive meals during school hours.

We may not be able to resolve all sorts of natural and political forces, but GCNF and SNA know that nurturing and educating a child is the single most effective means of breaking the cycle of poverty. And because a hungry child cannot learn or thrive, a society whose children live in hunger will never prosper. GCNF works to help nations build and sustain school feeding programs.

School communities can become a part of the solution to global hunger. Whether helping to raise money for GCNF, the World Food Programme, Bread for the World, or one of dozens of other hunger action organizations-or just raising awareness about hunger in the U.S and abroad—school nutrition professionals are taking important steps toward ending childhood hunger.

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Time To Change Our World

Hunger affects children around the world when it doesn't have to. The Change Our World campaign was created to fight global child hunger by supporting the Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF). GCNF is an organization committed to eliminating childhood hunger across the globe through the creation of self-sustaining school nutrition programs. By nurturing young bodies and minds, we can build a more stable, peaceful world.

This isn't a simple task, which is where the Change Our World campaign comes in. It is our hope that people will see the work of GCNF and be compelled to give. It's not the size of the gift that makes a difference. If every child in America that eats school lunch gave a single quarter it would equal around $7.5 million—all from a single quarter.

Please watch the video, Neenah Makes a Difference. Maybe it will show you what can happen when we give, one quarter at a time.

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