Congressional staff members mingle while they eat cereal at the Share Your Breakfast event on Capitol Hill. (Kit Fox / Medill)
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers and staff slurped cereal and munched on waffles around picnic tables with red-checkered table cloths at a “Share Your Breakfast” event Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
The food corporation Kellogg’s, based in Battle Creek, Mich., and the non-profit organization Action for Healthy Kids are teaming up to provide one million school breakfasts across the United States.
One in five children live in homes where food is not readily available, said USDA Undersecretary Kevin Concannon. He called breakfast in the classroom an “innovation.”
“[Breakfast] helps assure that the investment we are making in teachers and classrooms pays off when a student isn’t distracted with a headache or stomach ache because he or she did not eat,” he said. Simply put, students perform better when they have food in their stomachs.
“When you meet a hungry child, it breaks your heart and you feel ashamed,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “People say to me, well these are tough budget times; we can’t afford to invest in this or that. When it comes to hunger, we can’t afford not to.”
Standing in front of a special Frosted Flakes box with his face on it, McGovern called a White House food and nutrition conference with government agencies and the private sector to find a solution to hunger.
“What we lack in this country is a comprehensive holistic plan to end hunger,” he said. “We need to bring [agencies] into the White House, lock the door and not let any of them leave until a plan has been made.”
McGovern sent a letter to the Obama administration, detailing his idea, and lobbied congress to convene the conference. But there are no promises —yet. For now, he said it is important for private companies like Kellogg’s come forward to help create solutions.
As a part of national breakfast week which started Monday, Kellogg’s announced that it will expand its grant program to schools that want to provide free or subsidized healthy meals in the morning.
The Kennett School District in southern Missouri received a grant in October. Deb Cook, the district’s director of health, said she expects to see a significant improvement in attendance and test scores.
“As a school nurse, I saw kids come in with a stomach ache. If they had something to eat they didn’t need to go home, which already improves attendance,” Cook said. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, D-Mo., honored Cook with a framed Frosted Flakes box during the event.
After speaking, McGovern hoisted his personalized cereal box in the air and said, “I’ve received a lot of awards but the only thing my kids will be impressed with is this.”
