No school, no meals? Communities take action

On Thursday night, when it became clear that Newport Independent Schools would be closed for a fifth day, Principal Kyle Niederman went into a bit of a panic.

In a school district where 90 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, he knew the snow days meant many of his Newport Intermediate students would have gone all week without having had a nutritious meal, or maybe even any meal at all. A fifth day off would mean that some might also go hungry all weekend.

Niederman fired off an email to his teachers and staff, and on Friday morning nearly two dozen of them showed up at the school to trek across the city in the snow and biting cold, volunteering their time to knock on doors and deliver food to make sure their students were fed.

They delivered 66 Power Packs, bags of nutritious, nonperishable items provided by the Freestore Foodbank and normally distributed to a school's neediest students on Friday afternoons.

"We were concerned about our students and wanted to make sure we helped them the best we could," Niederman said. "They'll have food this weekend, and hopefully they'll have a good weekend."

Going to bed with an empty stomach is a reality for far too many children in our region: the Freestore Foodbank estimates 100,000 children across Greater Cincinnati's 20 counties don't know where their next meal is coming from.

Many schools provide free or reduced breakfast and lunch – but when school is out, the children risk going hungry.

The Power Pack program serves the neediest 10 percent through partnerships with 90 schools in Ohio and Kentucky. About 4,000 packs are distributed each Friday to children between the ages of 6 and 12 years old to see them through the weekend.

If you bought a rubber duck during the Freestore Foodbank's Rubber Duck Regatta last summer, you've helped feed a hungry child: the event is the nonprofit agency's largest annual fundraiser and one of the most successful anti-hunger fundraisers in the nation. One duck costs $5 – about the same as one Power Pack.

Just across the Ohio River in Lower Price Hill, where half of families live below the federal poverty level, the thought of children going cold and hungry spurred the entire community into action on Friday.

"Obviously with the kids being out of school all week, we were in a panic thinking of the kids who maybe hadn't eaten all week," said Mandy Reverman, who runs a nonprofit that also distributes clothing, hats and gloves to kids in need.

The Santa Maria Community Center opened its doors for a few hours so that Power Packs could be distributed to Oyler School children, and the school alerted families through its automated telephone system. Community volunteers also arranged for them to have a hot meal at the same time.

Within an hour, volunteers had distributed 100 quarts of soup, a carload of Servatii bread, and 85 Power Packs to more than 100 hungry children and their families.

Other communities also went the extra mile: in Florence, Collins Elementary opened the school's doors two days this week so families could pick up items collected through a communitywide food drive. Staffers even delivered food to a family who had trudged more than a mile in the snow to pick up food on a day when the school was closed.

To learn more about childhood hunger in our community or to take action, click here.