{"id":2533,"date":"2020-03-11T07:21:53","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T11:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/?p=2533"},"modified":"2020-03-11T07:21:53","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T11:21:53","slug":"unlocking-the-resources-to-solve-childhood-hunger-in-the-united-states-by-michelle-aboodi-and-katie-ellman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/2020\/03\/11\/unlocking-the-resources-to-solve-childhood-hunger-in-the-united-states-by-michelle-aboodi-and-katie-ellman\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlocking the Resources to Solve Childhood Hunger in the United States–by Michelle Aboodi and Katie Ellman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Billy Shore, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Share Our Strength<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To Billy Shore, co-founder of Share Our Strength<\/a>, childhood hunger in America has always seemed like a solvable problem. He understands the statistics: that over 11 million US children live in food insecure<\/a> homes, that 22 million US children rely on the free or reduced-price lunch they get at school.<\/p>\n

But he and the team at No Kid Hungry<\/a>, Share Our Strength\u2019s campaign against childhood hunger, also know that there\u2019s no shortage of food in America. To them, the solution is connecting hungry kids to that food.<\/p>\n

Bard MBA student Michelle Aboodi spoke with Shore about No Kid Hungry\u2019s initiative to help educators and lawmakers make breakfast a part of the regular school day. They also discussed Share Our Strength\u2019s origin story and its business model.<\/p>\n

The following Q&A is an edited excerpt from the Bard <\/em>MBA\u2019s March 6th <\/em>The Impact Report<\/em><\/a> podcast. The Impact Report brings together students and faculty in <\/em>Bard\u2019s MBA in Sustainability<\/em><\/a> program with leaders in business, sustainability and social entrepreneurship.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reposted from GreenBiz.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BARD MBA: WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO FOUND SHARE OUR STRENGTH IN 1984?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The catalyst was the catastrophic famine in Ethiopia. It was probably the largest humanitarian crisis of its era. We wanted to create something that would be more permanent, though. So, while the catalyst was international famine, we got very focused on domestic issues. There was a lot of need here in the United States as well.<\/p>\n

When we started Share Our Strength, the idea was to enable people who wanted to make a difference in their community. We created a vehicle through which they could literally share their strength\u2014whatever they were good at.<\/p>\n

In our case it focused around the issue of hunger. To me, in all the years I worked in government and in the non-profit sector, it always seemed like a solvable problem.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BARD MBA: HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED IN THE THIRTY-FIVE YEARS YOU’VE BEN DOING THIS WORK?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019ve really been dramatic improvements. Particularly in the US, we got very focused on childhood hunger as a solvable problem. Over the last eight years we\u2019ve driven childhood hunger down by about 30%. There are actually fewer children experiencing hunger here than at any time in the last 25-30 yearsfoo.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons is that we have really good programs. We\u2019ve obviously got no shortage of food in America and we\u2019ve also got no shortage of food programs\u2014school lunch, the SNAP program\u2014so we focused on how to connect kids to these existing programs. As a result, literally millions more kids are now getting three meals a day. We\u2019re also starting to see all the benefits that come with that: test scores are better, attendance is better, behavior is better.<\/p>\n

Although solving poverty is complex, feeding a child is not\u2014that\u2019s doable. We may have poverty, but I think we\u2019ll get to the point in the next 10-12 years where we\u2019ll no longer have kids who are hungry in the US.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BARD MBA: WHICH IS SHARE OUR STRENGTH’S MOST IMPACTFUL INITIATIVE?<\/strong><\/p>\n

About ten years ago we transitioned from being a grant maker to other not-for-profits to creating our own campaign. It\u2019s called \u201cNo Kid Hungry,\u201d and one of its signature initiatives is to make sure there are options for kids to have breakfast during the school day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for a lot of kids to get to school early, and there\u2019s also a stigma attached to kids who go in early for the free breakfast, so we\u2019ve moved breakfast in thousands of schools into the classroom. It\u2019s a different way of doing things, and it required schools to make adjustments, but once they did we started to see improvements in the school system.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BARD MBA: HOW BIG IS YOUR TEAM, AND WHAT’S YOUR OPERATING BUDGET?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re privately funded and our operating budget is about $85 million. We have a team of about 240 people. Most of what we do is have boots on the ground in communities\u2014working in schools, working with mayors and governors to make sure programs are executed well. Our product really is our people.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where we invest everything. The food itself is paid for\u2014all these school meals I\u2019ve been describing are 100% federally subsidized. The key is to unlock them. If we spend a hundred thousand dollars in a community to get them to move their breakfast from the cafeteria to the classroom, and that adds 60-80,000 kids who get breakfast every day for the remainder of their time in school, it\u2019s a great return on investment. Our staff is out in the field doing that work, that\u2019s our principal value add.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BARD MBA: WHY ARE POVERTY AND HUNGER STILL SUCH A PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We still have a lot of inequality, unfortunately, and structural inequality in our economy. When the economy does well it, leaves people behind. Hunger really is just a symptom of the deeper and more complex issue of poverty.<\/p>\n

The best way to solve it permanently would be to find ways to lift more people out of poverty. Ultimately, we\u2019re going to have to make long term investments in education and in training people for the workplace of the future if we want to really get to these underlying problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To Billy Shore, co-founder of Share Our Strength, childhood hunger in America has always seemed like a solvable problem. He understands the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":267,"featured_media":2536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,535],"tags":[961,960,823,963,959,957,958,964,956,962],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-the-impact-report","tag-billy-shore","tag-childhood-hunger","tag-food-insecurity","tag-food-programs","tag-free-and-reduced-lunch","tag-no-kid-hungry","tag-school-breakfast","tag-school-meals","tag-share-our-strength","tag-snap"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/files\/2020\/03\/TIR303-Bill-Shore-head-shot_2013-e1583925490543.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2541,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions\/2541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}