Kids' art combats local poverty

The Hoosier Hills Food Bank will be making presentations and accepting artwork from local children throughout November as part of the Children's Art Calendar Project. The calendar is used as an advocacy tool by which food bank administrators hope to raise awareness of childhood hunger. \nLoraine Addison, administrative assistant for HHFB and event coordinator, said the calendar is a way for kids to help their community by expressing hunger issues through art.\n"It's an advocacy tool and a chance for kids to help other kids understand that no child should go hungry," Addison said. \nThe presentations are designed to help children understand food banks and give them ideas to express in their artwork. Artwork is collected from the agencies the food bank serves, along with school classes and community groups. Only 12 pieces of art are used in the calendar, but every child who participates gets his or her name printed in the calendar. The artwork not used in the calendar is framed and given by the food bank for recognition purposes throughout the year. \n"It's important to get children involved so they know they can have an impact on other people's lives," Addison said. "It's a way for the community to gain awareness of hunger issues affecting children locally and nationally."\nLocally, hunger among children is on the rise. Addison said that in 2002, 32 percent of the individuals served at Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, a local food pantry, were children under 18. That's up from 30 percent in 2001. Additionally, one-third of meals given at the local Community Kitchen were to children, and 29 percent of Monroe County Community School Corporation students are on free or reduced meals, Addison said. \nLast year, nine groups with a total of 118 children participated in the project. So far this year, Girls Inc., Monroe County United Ministries, Binford Elementary and the Girl Scouts have already participated. Addison said the food bank wants to diversify its outreach efforts to help educate a wide spectrum of children in the community.\n"Youth become our hunger advocates and our donors, leaders in the community and the community overall become that much more aware of the challenges faced by children and families facing hunger," Addison said. "This helps the food bank advance its mission to help alleviate unnecessary hunger." \nThe art calendar was started in 1999 by Dan Taylor, assistant director of HHFB, who brought the idea back after visiting a Fort Wayne food bank. Besides artwork, each page of the calendar contains hunger statistics, highlights on a local service agency and information about the food bank. \n"The calendar seemed appropriate to work with the children and see what their perceptions (of hunger) are and how it affects some of their classmates," Taylor said. \nThe free calendar is sent to everyone the food bank is affiliated with, including schools, city leaders and anyone they think needs to learn about hunger.\n"We want them to think about it all year long," said Amy Robinson, director of HHFB. "And make sure our leaders know hunger exists even here." \nHHFB serves Monroe, Brown, Lawrence, Martin, Orange and Owen counties. Its key programs are collecting and storing donated, salvaged or unmarketable food products, distributing food to non-profit organizations and building community awareness about the problems of local hunger. It receives surplus food from over 70 donors, including restaurants and grocery stores. IU is the largest donor. \nEvery month, the food bank feeds about 19,000 people at 100 different agencies. \n"There is a real problem with childhood hunger and adults going hungry too," Robinson said.\nWhile some countries define hunger as starvation, hunger in the United States is defined as not having the financial resources to purchase food, Robinson said. She added that poverty is the cause of hunger in the U.S. \nMAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, an anti-hunger advocacy organization based in Los Angeles, is the sole sponsor of the Children's Art Calendar Project. It granted the food bank $10,000 to use for the calendar.\nAccording to MAZON's Web site, www.mazon.org, studies show that 33 million poor Americans nationwide know the pain of hunger, and there are nearly 12 million children who are hungry or at risk of hunger because their families lack the money to buy enough food. \n-- Contact staff writer Hannah Schroder at hschrode@indiana.edu.