The Third Annual APRIL FOOD DAY!

For the third year in a row, Easy and Elegant Life’s Editor, Chris Cox and I are pleased to host APRIL FOOD DAY, Bloggers Fighting Hunger. Here’s what you can do to help!

You can add the logo for Feeding America, the national food bank, to your blog. Feeding America has also set up a special URL for donations, here.

You can tell the story of how many people in America:

• In 2009, 50.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 33 million adults and 17.2 million children
• In 2009, households with children reported food insecurity at almost double the rate for those without children, 21.3 percent compared to 11.4 percent.
• In 2009, households that had higher rates of food insecurity than the national average included households with children (21.3 percent), especially households with children headed by single women (36.6 percent) or single men (27.8 percent), Black non-Hispanic households (24.9 percent) and Hispanic households (26.9 percent).
• In 2009, 7.8 percent of seniors living alone (884,000 households) were food insecure.

You can tell your readers what a contribution to Feeding America, or a local food bank will do to help those who are hungry:

• Feeding America provides emergency food assistance to approximately 5.7 million different people per week.
• Among members of Feeding America, 74 percent of pantries, 65 percent of kitchens, and 54 percent of shelters reported that there had been an increase since 2006 in the number of clients who come to their emergency food program sites. 

Here’s what else you can do:

• Add the Feeding America, or April Food Day link to your Facebook status
• Tweet about April Food Day
• Link your post here, so we can see how many participants we have.

On behalf of all of the people you will be helping, thank you so much!

April Food Day Links List

Please post a link to your post about April Food Day - not your entire blog, just the April Food Day post! The link will take you to another page where you'll enter the URL for your post, and then it will bring you right back here.

April Food Day 2011

We are pleased to host the Third Annual April Food Day: Bloggers Fighting Hunger! To participate, please post the April Food Day logo on your blog and add a link to either the national food bank, Feeding America, or your local food bank.

To encourage people to donate, you might link directly to the donations page. Feeding America has a secure on-line donations page: HERE.

If hunger has touched you, or someone you  know, I hope that you will consider sharing the story with your readers. A personalized story helps make Hunger in America more real to people.

Additionally, please Tweet about April Food Day, and add it to your Facebook status on April 1.

I will be posting a links list so that everyone can see who participated. Look for that tomorrow!

It's APRIL FOOD DAY

Today is April Food Day and it’s no joke.

More and more people in our country are going hungry because they have lost their jobs, their benefits have ended, they can’t find a job and have no place left to turn but to their local food bank. But the nation’s food banks are stretched to the limit because of the increased number of people needing their services.

You might think that none of your friends are going hungry, but I read a comment on a piece NPR did about a photography exhibit about hunger in America, and think it could apply to any one of us:

…a dear friend and community member crossed over. At his one year crossing remembrance, stories began to come out and I realized with great sorrow, our friend went hungry. I feel sad when I think of it, that our dear friend who gave so much and was so generous in spirit and friendship was hungry and we never knew that. How did we not make it our business to know how it was with him we loved so?

Please make a donation to Feeding America, or your local food bank, and count yourself as one of the lucky ones if you’re not going to bed hungry every night. Feeding America has set up a special URL for April Food Day so they can see how much we’ve donated.

If you’re a blogger, tweeter, facebooker or have an e-mail list, please share this address. Let me know if you’ve posted about April Food Day, and we will add you to the list of participants on the April Food Day site.

Thank you very much.

Story on NPR About Hunger

Interestingly, there was a story about hunger in America this afternoon on NPR. You can listen to it here.

Photographer Michael Nye has been documenting the faces and voices of hunger — those who are newly hungry, others who have experienced hunger all their lives, and some who have known it temporarily but unforgettably.

His new exhibition, "About Hunger & Resilience," is on display at San Antonio's Witte Museum.

April Food Day Details – Are you in?

April 1 is just two days away and we’re preparing for the second annual April Food Day blog event. This year, Chris Cox, Editor of Easy & Elegant Life, and I hope that people will post the link on twitter and facebook, and share the information with their friends and colleagues.

Feeding America has provided April Food Day with a special link that will track the giving, and so we will know what an impact it’s had.

Here are some facts to use in writing about April Food Day:

• Feeding America is annually providing food to 37 million Americans, including 14 million children. This is an increase of 46 percent over 2006, when we were feeding 25 million Americans, including 9 million children, each year.
• That means one in eight Americans now rely on Feeding America for food and groceries.
• Feeding America's nationwide network of food banks is feeding 1 million more Americans each week than we did in 2006.
• Thirty-six percent of the households served have at least one person working.
• More than one-third of client households report having to choose between food and other basic necessities, such as rent, utilities and medical care.
• The number of children the Feeding America network serves has increased by 50 percent since 2006.
• Feeding America food banks provide food and groceries to 33,500 food pantries, 4,500 soup kitchens and 3,600 emergency shelters.
• 68 percent of pantries, 42 percent of soup kitchens, and 15 percent of emergency shelters rely solely on volunteers and have no paid staff.
• 55 percent, are faith-based agencies affiliated with churches, mosques, synagogues and other religious organizations; 33 percent are other types of non-profit organizations.

There are several important links to include:

• Feeding America’s website
• The link to their April Food Day donation page
• My e-mail
• Chris’s e-mail

Last but not least, please let either Chris or me know that you’ve posted about April Food Day, so that we can add you to our list of participants. We had about 150 bloggers last year and would love to double that in 2010!

Thanks for helping us make a difference!

Meg & Chris

April Food Day 2010

We are gearing up for April Food Day 2010, and hope that you will join us in our fight against hunger in America.

We will be adding details on this year's campaign in a few days, and also providing a specific donation link to Feeding America, the national food bank.

THANK YOU!!

Well, the day is over and I think I can say that the first annual April Food Day, Bloggers Fighting Hunger, was a huge success. And it is all thanks to our fellow bloggers and all of our readers and to my partner-in-crime, Chris at Easy & Elegant Life.

At last count, we had 115 blogs who participated. Of course, these are just the ones we know about, and there may be many more out there that we don't know about. If you posted and your blog doesn't appear on the list on April Food Day, let me know, and we'll add it.

Bloggers who posted ranged from the traditional design/decor blogs to southern prep and hospitality blogs to the Blume Library's blog. We were mentioned on the weekly Food Chat on the Washington Post and on Dining @ Large in the Baltimore Sun, and on the Huffington Post. Bloggers in England, Scotland and France, as well as our neighbours to the north in Canada, all wrote about April Food Day. Some people just posted the logo and the links and others told personal stories of volunteering at food banks or having to use one.

Unfortunately, I don't know that we'll be able to find out how much bloggers donated, as there was no way to flag our donations. Also, some people linked to their local food banks for their readers. Regardless, I know that we all made an impact by raising both money and awareness.

Thank you very very much to each and every blogger who posted and to each and every person who made a contribution.

Links and Logos

The blog is: http://aprilfoodday.blogspot.com/

The feeding america site is: www.feedingamerica.org

The donation page is: https://secure2.convio.net/a2h/site/Donation2?idb=1375441249&df_id=1560&1560.donat ion=form1

Here's the logo:Here's one designed by Rosemary at Content in a Cottage. Thank you for helping.

APRIL FOOD DAY

Do you know that...

• One in eight Americans are at risk for hunger?
• Four million Americans receive assistance from Feeding America each week?
• Children who are hungry have slower emotional, social and educational development?
• Millions of elderly Americans go to bed hungry every night?

It is so critical that those of us who are not in this position help those who are. So many people who never thought they would need food assistance are now asking for help from their local food bank. They have lost their jobs through the massive down-sizings and layoffs. They have exhausted all of their resources. Elderly people on fixed incomes are finding that costs are out-pacing their incomes.

First-time requests at food banks are at an all-time high, but the shelves are bare. Corporations and foundations have decreased their donations and individuals are so uncertain about their own finances, that their giving has slowed.

We are asking that you make a donation, even if it's just a dollar or two. It will help someone who may be less fortunate than you are.

Here's the link to Feeding America, an affiliation of more than 200 food banks across the country. Chances are that your local food bank is a part of this network.

We're all in this together, and that's the way we will come through it... together.

Please help today. The need is great and the time is now.

Thank you so very much.