Together We Can End Child Hunger

on in Health

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With Thanksgiving on the horizon, food is top of mind for millions of Americans. Across the country, families are planning who will bring what and who gets to make their famous dishes. Thanksgiving is a joyous time for family and friends to reflect on all we have been given.

Unfortunately, for a significant number of many American families, food will be a central focus for different reasons. For the millions of children suffering from hunger, especially Latino children in the U.S., their thoughts around food and the holiday will be the same this week as they are every other week—namely, how to get enough of it.

At NCLR, we understand the plight that many Latinos, especially children, face when it comes to hunger. Through our Institute for Hispanic Health and our Health Policy Project, we work on creating programs and fighting for policy changes that will lift Latinos out of poverty and into homes with food security. ConAgra Foods, a longtime partner, also recognizes the challenges that families face in putting wholesome, healthy food on the table, and we have teamed up with them to help end child hunger in America. ConAgra Foods has been a generous supporter of programs like “Reflejos de mi comunidad,” which gave cameras to young people and asked them to photograph what they saw as challenges to healthy eating in their local neighborhoods. Programs like this help us all better understand the obstacles Latino families face and what we need to do to make a difference.

Of course, NCLR and ConAgra Foods alone can’t put an end to childhood hunger in the U.S. It takes collaboration from all sectors of society, including everyday Americans. To spread awareness of the cause and the significant impact among Latino children, NCLR joined ConAgra Foods’ “Child Hunger Ends Here” program for a Twitter chat around the issue. We were joined by 2014 NCLR ALMA Award recipient and Hollywood star María Canals-Barrera, who took questions from NCLR and Twitter users about what they can do to get involved. Below are highlights from that chat.

The chat included some great comments from the Twitterverse:

We moved on to our last couple of questions for Canals-Barrera:

Our contributors had some other helpful tips:

And with that, our chat came to a close.

The chat may have ended, but that doesn’t mean the conversation around child hunger should. We strongly urge you all to keep talking about this. Together, we will end child hunger.

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