Jamie Oliver gives a TED Talk on obesity in the United States, and gives viewers common sense recommendations for alleviating this problem. If the video does not work properly, please view it at this web address: http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html

Rethink Breakfast, Help Feed Children in Need

One in five Americans, or about 60 million people, do not eat or drink anything in the morning before 11 a.m., according to a new analysis by The NPD Group; and millions more opt for nutrient-poor choices on the run. This is despite the fact that studies repeatedly show that skipping breakfast makes it nearly impossible to achieve adequate daily intakes of key nutrients.

Are you the one in those five? If so, we want to help you rethink breakfast! There are many reasons why breakfast should be a part of your day:

• Recharge your brain & body – studies show that breakfast helps you concentrate, focus and gives you energy to tackle the day. It helps kids learn and behave better in the classroom.
• Achieve & maintain a healthy weight – people who skip breakfast actually end up eating more calories throughout the day and tend to weigh more.
• Be a role model – children and teens are most likely to skip breakfast, which is devastating to their health. If you make it a priority, they will follow your lead.
• Bond with your family – although mornings can be chaotic, all you need is a few minutes to eat together so you can bond and feel good knowing your kids are getting off to a right start.

In choosing healthy options for breakfast, milk makes the meal. Milk is the most naturally nutritious drink you could have, with nine essential nutrients, including calcium, potassium and vitamin D, three nutrients that the USDA says Americans need more of. It’s also packed with protein to stay full and satisfied. Plain and simple, it’s not breakfast without Shamrock Farms milk and here’s a few quick ways you can incorporate milk into breakfast:

• Have milk with whole-grain cereal
• Make oatmeal with milk instead of water
• Make pancakes with milk instead of water
• Make a smoothie with milk and fruit
• Enjoy a glass with whole-wheat toast and almond butter
• Grab a single-serve milk and cereal bar

Kids are the population most affected by missing the critical nutrients breakfast and milk can provide. To encourage your family, and all Arizona families, to start off your day right with milk for breakfast, Shamrock Farms is celebrating National Breakfast Week by visiting Phoenix-area schools and serving milk and whole-grain cereal to kids. Our celebration is inspired by the new “got milk?” Breakfast Project campaign to help Americans change their view on breakfast. Check out their website for tons of tips and recipes for breakfast.

And we’re taking it a step further. While most vulnerable children have access to free or reduced cost breakfast at school through the school year, options are limited during the summer. In an effort to supplement summer breakfast programs, we’re hosting a Facebook “Like” drive to earn servings of milk for children in need. For every new Facebook user to “Like” Shamrock Farms from now until April 30, one 8-oz serving of nutrient-rich milk, up to 10,000 servings, will be donated to the Arizona Partnership to End Childhood Hunger, which in turn will distribute the milk to affiliated summer breakfast programs throughout the state.

If you’re not a Shamrock Farms fan on Facebook, please like us now and help us achieve our fundraising goal. And tomorrow, rethink your breakfast and make the right choice!

Meeting the Need in Challenging Times: The Arizona Food Bank Network Conference

Wednesday, April 25, 2012
8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (registration opens at 7:30 a.m.)
Location: Vineyard Church North Phoenix
(NE corner of Peoria & 63rd Avenues in Glendale, AZ)
No Registration Fee

RSVP Today!
This information-packed conference is a must for food banks and emergency food providers, anti-hunger advocates and organizations, the faith community, and many others. Get the latest information you need, be motivated and inspired by the efforts to serve Arizonans struggling with hunger and poverty, and network with your peers. Make plans to join us today!

FEEDING AMERICA
Feeding America Launches Child Hunger Newsroom
February 22, 2012

Social Newsroom to Drive Conversation Around Child Hunger and Help Influencers and Media Better Understand the Issue of Child Hunger in America
Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, announced today the launch of its Child Hunger Newsroom, a new way for advocates to access, share and distribute information about child hunger. The Child Hunger Newsroom will serve as a repository for official Feeding America news and announcements, facts about child hunger and ways for social influencers like bloggers and online advocates to get involved and inform their audiences. The newsroom will also aggregate news stories and blog and social media posts about child hunger from across the United States, bringing the conversation to one convenient location.

“No child should worry about where their next meal will come from,” said Vicki Escarra, Feeding America’s President and CEO. “Nutrition is critical to children’s physical development and to their ability to concentrate and succeed in the classroom. The Child Hunger Newsroom provides the facts and information that our friends and advocates and the news media need to tell the story of child hunger in the United States and the importance of getting nutritious food into the hands of every child.”
Earlier this month, Feeding America launched its Blogger Council, a group of online hunger-relief advocates that will help spread the word about food insecurity in the United States and solutions to the problem. The Child Hunger Newsroom is a key resource for these advocates, providing information and aggregating content from across the Web. The newsroom launched with child hunger facts and comprehensive information about Feeding America’s BackPack Program, which provides food for children over weekends and school holidays.

Join the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to learn more about how you can help feed children next summer and hear the benefits to being a part of the Summer Food Service Program!

 USDA FNS 2012 Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) Introductory Webinars

 Tuesday, 12/13, 11:00am – 12:00pm EST – Public Session  
Thursday, 12/15, 1:00pm – 2:00pm EST – Public Session  
Monday, 12/19, 11:00am – 12:00pm EST – Public Session  
Wednesday, 12/21, 2:00pm – 3:00pm EST – FNS Outreach Coalition  
Wednesday, 1/4, 2:00pm – 3:00pm EST – Public Session  
Wednesday, 1/11, 5:00pm – 6:00pm EST – Public Session  
Tuesday, 1/24, 6:00pm – 7:00pm EST – Public Session  
Thursday, 2/2, 11:00am – 12:00pm EST – Public Session  
Thursday, 2/23, 3:00pm – 4:00pm EST – Public Session

 Registration Link: http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/17fb9g4d8da

 Session Description: These webinar sessions are designed to provide a high level overview of the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). Every “Introductory” webinar session will cover the same content. Following the overview of the SFSP, the session will cover resources and tools available to help get started with the SFSP, successful outreach practices and tips, next steps and how to get involved, and then the session will open for questions and answers with USDA FNS staff.

 Participation:  These sessions will be available via Microsoft Office LiveMeeting (Webinar) and are free for all participants.  You will need access to a phone line and a computer with internet access for this webinar.  To participate, please complete the online registration.  Further information will be forthcoming to registered participants.  You must register to receive additional information. Connection instructions will be sent prior to the session in which you register for, to the email address you provide in the registration.

 Other Webinar Sessions: If you are interested but unable to attend one of these sessions, please register to participate in one of the other sessions in the series.  There will be additional sessions added to the schedule in the near future.  Please check the registration page for additional sessions. Each session in this series will cover the same content.

 Recording: All sessions will be recorded and posted online and on-demand soon following the completion of the webinar. All sessions will be posted on the USDA FNS Summer Food Service Program website: www.summerfood.usda.gov.

Youth Service America (YSA) improves communities by increasing the number and the diversity of young people, ages 5-25, serving in substantive roles. Founded in 1986, YSA supports a global culture of engaged youth committed to a lifetime of service, learning, leadership, and achievement. The impact of YSA’s work through service and service-learning is measured in student achievement, workplace readiness, and healthy communities. For more information, visit www.YSA.org.

Sodexo in North America Sodexo, Inc. (www.sodexoUSA.com), leading Quality of Daily Life Solutions company in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, delivers On Site Service Solutions in Corporate, Education, Health Care, Government, and Remote Site segments, as well as Motivation Solutions such as Esteem Pass. Sodexo, Inc., headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., funds all administrative costs for the Sodexo Foundation (www.SodexoFoundation.org), an independent charitable organization that, since its founding in 1999, has made more than $13 million in grants to fight hunger in America. Visit the corporate blog at www.sodexoUSA.com/blog.

What: YSA will award 100 Sodexo Youth Grants of $500 each to support youth-led service projects in the United States that address the issue of childhood hunger on Global Youth Service Day (April 20-22, 2012). We’re looking for projects that engage your peers, friends, families, neighbors, Sodexo employees, and other community members in creative, youth-inspired solutions to ending childhood hunger in your community. Over 17 million children in the United States live at risk of hunger, including the 1 in 4 children who rely on free and reduced-price school breakfast and lunch programs as their only guaranteed meals. YSA and Sodexo are calling on young people, ages 5-25, to help make sure your peers don’t have to worry about where their next meal will come from, and can instead focus on learning and leading healthy and productive lives. 17 million children across the United States need your ideas and commitment to solving this issue through service.

Deadline: Applications are due by midnight January 17th, 2012

For more information, visit http://www.ysa.org/grants/sodexoyouth

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Choosing between buying food or paying for shelter – is the grim reality for many Arizonans. The current economic conditions have put more individuals and families into distress than at any other time in our state’s history. But VSUW has a vision to turn things around. The goal is simple: end hunger in Maricopa County. Learn more here.

 Food security is defined as the access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food insecurity is a growing public health problem in the United States. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), as of 2009, food insecurity affects about 17.4 million United States households (14.7% of all households) (Nord, Coleman-Jensen, Andrews, & Carlson, 2010), the highest level since the USDA began tracking food security levels in 1995. Among households with children, 8.4 million, or 21.3%, were food insecure at some time during 2009. Children raised in food-insecure households are at increased risk for a wide array of negative health outcomes including compromised immune functioning, increased risk for infections, and somatic complaints. Children raised in food-insecure households are also at increased risk for academic and socio-emotional difficulties (Cook & Frank, 2008). Household Food Insercurity Serious Concerns for Child Development

The Arizona Partnership to End Childhood Hunger
Ways to Help End Child Hunger in Arizona

• Educate Yourself, Your Family, Your Community
• Send a Note – Tell a Friend
• Participate in a Food Co-Op
• Help Families with www.healthearizona.org
• Help the Helpers
• Conduct Food Preparation Classes
• Host a Kid’s Café
• Connect Families to www.arizonaselfhelp.org
• Host Summer Feeding Program
• Create a Vegetable Garden
• Meal Scholarships for Youth
• Teach & Encourage Container Gardening
• Who’s Hungry in Your Community?
• Plug into an Elementary School
• Organize a Drive or Fundraiser
• Teach Nutrition
• Healthy Snacks Only Please!
• Social Media for Storytelling
• Friday Backpacks
• Distribute Food Where Children Gather
• Project FEED
• Kids Eat Free Nights
• Partner in the Business Community

Got ideas? Let us hear what you’re doing at info@endchildhungeraz.org

Ways to Help End Child Hunger (PDF)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15, 2011 – Today, USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon invited children across America to show the country what they or their peers are doing to help end childhood hunger in their school or community by entering the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) Ending Childhood Hunger Video Contest.

FNS is looking for original student videos of two minutes or less that show creative ways they or their peers are tackling the problem of childhood hunger or an innovative idea they have that would contribute to the goal of ending childhood hunger in America. The winning videos will be showcased online and will serve to inspire students across the country to take action on the issue of childhood hunger.

“If we want to build our nation for the future then we need to make sure our kids are healthy and strong today,” said Concannon. “We can start by ending childhood hunger and working to make sure all of our kids have the nutrition they need. We are excited to learn what valuable ideas kids across America have to contribute to addressing this need that touches the nation’s most important resource – our children.”

USDA’s most recent data shows that while in most households, children were protected from substantial reductions in food intake, children experienced very low food security in about 386,000 households (1 percent of households with children) in 2010. In these households, one or more children do not get enough to eat – they had to cut the size of their meals, skip meals, or even go whole days without food at some time during the year.

To tackle this challenge, last year FNS launched the Ending Childhood Hunger initiative, which included a Stakeholder Guide of ideas about what people can do locally to reduce hunger, an online commitment drive encouraging people to commit to taking a specific action to reduce hunger locally, and a volunteer portal on serve.gov/endhunger.

The video contest launched today as part of Hunger Action Month, is yet another way for communities to engage in the issue and inspire others around the country to act. The contest is open to students from first through twelfth grade. FNS judges will determine the top 12 finalists in three categories: elementary, middle/junior high, and high schools. The public will vote on the finalists to determine the top two winners in each category. Winners will be promoted through various FNS channels including the FNS website, the USDA blog, local and national press releases, Facebook, Twitter, a national webinar, and the FNS Outreach Coalition annual meeting. Videos must be two minutes or less and meet other contest criteria, and be submitted no later than Oct. 21, 2011. For additional information and details on contest rules, please visit the contest webpage at http://endhunger.challenge.gov.

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service administers 15 nutrition assistance programs, including the National School Lunch Program; the School Breakfast Program; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children; and the Summer Food Service Program. Taken together, these programs comprise America’s nutrition safety net.