Earlier this week, I tweeted,
Humbled last Friday with
my trip to #worldfoodprize. Unbelievable stuff. 43% of the world lives on less than $2 per
day. #soblessed
When Mr. Collins, Pleasantville’s Ag teacher, asked me to
chaperone our student, Jessica Webster, who qualified for the World Food Prize,
I had no idea what I had volunteered for. Now that it’s over, it was a
tremendous opportunity and one that I wish everyone could attend. Some of the details that have emerged through
the day made me feel very small and insignificant. I have never been hungry a
day in my life (insert fat joke here). I have never really known anybody who
has truly been hungry. Growing up, I knew kids that were poor and probably
qualified for free or reduced meals at school. But “$2 per day” poor? Nope,
never knew anyone like that before. Our schools free and reduced population is
between 30 and 35 percent. Better than some, worse than others. I have read
research on Doug Reeve’s 90-90-90 schools, 90% minority, 90% free and reduced
and 90% proficient on state tests. I marvel at those numbers yet I still feel
depressed.
It has been documented that 3 billion (yes, that’s a “b”)
people are on a “plant and rice” diet in the world today. In the next fifty
years, we will need to feed the equivalent of two more China’s. Does that
affect us here in central Iowa? Absolutely, it does. It affects us because
there is no more farmland to till up and plant crops. We in education always
talk about the need to infuse technology into our classrooms and the learning
that takes place in our buildings, we also need to step up the technology resources
that will be used to increase crop production and help feed the world.
We just have to do better. Danielle Nierenberg, Director of
the Nourishing the Planet project, stated that there is 34 billion tons of food
wasted in the United States between the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
There is a real dichotomy in these numbers. Our country needs to do better at
feeding our own, in our own community, yet we’re so wasteful. I’m very proud to
say that Pleasantville High School’s Student Council will again this year, be
sponsoring a food drive to help fill the food pantries in Marion County. Our
entire school will also be working with Meals from the Heartland (http://mealsfromtheheartland.org)
packaging meals for countries where hunger is a real problem. Our school has
set a goal of packaging 50,000 meals on Friday, November 16th. I
certainly hope we can make our goal. We can start small but we have to keep the
big picture in mind. By starting locally, we can then start to spread out to
the state, the nation and the world.
