School officials' help needed to end area children's hunger

Some 82 percent of city students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
By SEAN BARRON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- Whatever is being done to attack childhood hunger in the Mahoning Valley, a key to improving those solutions lies in all school officials' working together to address the problem.
That was a main theme 30 to 35 teachers, administrators and others from several Mahoning County school districts heard at a meeting Tuesday put on by the Columbus-based Children's Hunger Alliance.
The 90-minute session, convened by U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan and Ted Strickland and Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams at Choffin Career and Technical Center, was designed to explore ways to increase the use of U.S. Department of Agriculture child nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch, School Breakfast, Summer Food Service and Child and Adult Care food programs.
Many school districts in the county have implemented breakfast programs for children up to grade 12 with varying amounts of success and participation, and others plan to start one soon.
All pupils who attend Youngstown city schools, for example, are eligible to receive a free breakfast, Superintendent Wendy Webb noted.
Of the approximately 9,200 pupils in the district, about 82 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
Hunger figures
During his presentation, Charlie Kozlesky, the hunger alliance's vice president for community engagement, noted that three years ago, about 179,000 Ohio schoolchildren took part in school breakfast programs; this year, around 255,000 do so, he said.
He also went over enrollment figures for 14 Mahoning County school districts, as well as the percentage of pupils who participate in breakfast and lunch programs available at many of them.
Those eligible for free or reduced-cost lunches ranged from 5 percent of pupils in the Canfield Local School District to 82 percent in Youngstown.
Nevertheless, many eligible children still fail to get the morning meal at home or school, which often leads to poor concentration in the classroom, increased behavior problems, headaches, low blood sugar and other symptoms.
Reasons include a lack of time, lack of awareness of the programs, not having food at home and not getting to school on time, Kozlesky noted.
What officials said
Williams said that today's students face "innumerable challenges" and that hunger shouldn't be among them.
With advances in agricultural technology, "There is no excuse for children in our communities to be hungry," the mayor said.
Ryan, of Niles, D-17th, echoed those sentiments, saying that hunger and poverty are not inevitable byproducts of the American society.
"Our kids are competing with 1.3 billion citizens in China, 1 billion citizens in India," he said.
"We need to make sure they have three square [meals] and a little bit of exercise."
The nonprofit Children's Hunger Alliance works statewide with schools, child-care providers, elected officials, faith-based organizations and businesses to combat hunger. For more information, call (614) 341-7700.