You’ve undoubtedly seen the “No Kid Hungry” advertisements on websites. They’ve even popped up here in Google ads on The New American (before we specifically requested that they be blocked). The Food Network is a big sponsor of the program, as are Walmart, Denny’s restaurants, and Sysco Corporation. Actor Jeff Bridges (True Grit, Tron, Iron Man) is the national spokesman for the “No Kid Hungry” program.
Now, who could be opposed to an effort to feed hungry children? Exactly: The folks at No Kid Hungry — Share Our Strength know how to push the compassion button to raise lots of funds to lobby for ever bigger and more costly government programs, while at the same time creating an ever-expanding welfare class that will be mired in permanent dependency and provide ready foot soldiers for President Obama … or any other “Hope and Change” candidate who promises more government handouts.
The No Kid Hungry website informs us what “The Solution” is for ending childhood hunger:
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We’re ending childhood hunger by connecting kids to effective nutrition programs like school breakfast and summer meals.
“Connecting” invariably means, as the organization’s literature makes clear, hooking more families up with more government programs. It continues:
We have taken major steps toward ending childhood hunger. The national campaign is at work in all 50 states through our state and city-based campaigns, nutrition education programs, and our investments in local community partners.
It doesn’t take much poking around on the No Kid Hungry website to see that the organization’s primary focus is herding more children and families into more government food programs, and calling on its members and supporters to lobby federal, state, and local governments to expand current food programs and initiate new ones.
No Kid Hungry is a big advocate for federal Food Stamps, now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The No Kid Hungry website tells us:
Congress is working to reauthorize the Farm Bill, legislation that provides funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program, formerly known as food stamps. Drastic cuts to SNAP are on the table and nearly half of all SNAP participants are children. If Congress cuts funding for this poverty relieving program, it will affect millions of children and families, leaving them even more vulnerable to hunger.
No Kid Hungry lists as one of its accomplishments: “97,000+ letters sent to Congress on behalf of kids facing hunger.”
The No Kid Hungry financial report for 2012 explains:
While 21 million kids get free and reduced-price lunch.…
Only 11 million receive free or reduced-price school breakfast.
More than 10 million kids are missing out on a free or reduced-price breakfast.
We’re helping more kids start the day with breakfast.
The organization boasts:
The No kid Hungry campaign is working with schools across the country to expand access to school breakfast by moving it from the cafeteria to the classroom, making it part of the school day.
The Results:
28 million additional school breakfasts
Added 180,000 additional kids to school breakfast programs.
The No Kid Hungry activists are also proud of their political organizing and lobbying at the state and local levels, noting:
Another successful tactic we’ve employed is pursuing school breakfast legislation, which mandates that schools with a large percentage of low-income students expand school breakfast. For example, in Maryland, the No Kid Hungry campaign and our supporters advocated for additional state funding for breakfast. As a result of this advocacy, increased funding, and other efforts more than 33,000 Maryland kids have been added to the school breakfast program since 2010. In 2013, we’re pursuing breakfast legislation in a number of states, including Colorado.
No Kid Hungry is a project of Share Our Strength (SOS), a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization founded by the brother-and-sister team of Bill and Debbie Shore. A longtime Democratic activist, Bill Shore served on the senatorial and presidential campaign staff of former U.S. Senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and as chief of staff for former U.S. Senator Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.). Debbie Shore’s bio at Share Our Strength says that prior to starting SOS, she “was a political organizer and fund-raiser for former U.S. Senator Gary Hart’s (D-Colorado) presidential campaign.” Senator Hart was one of the most liberal-left big spenders in Congress.
The SOS Staff & Board webpage gives this background on the organization’s president, Thomas C. Nelson:
Prior to joining Share Our Strength in 2011, Nelson was chief operating officer for AARP, where he led the build-out of its state strategy in all 53 states and territories. He also led the reinvention of the AARP Foundation, which today serves those at risk of falling through our nation’s safety net as they struggle to meet their most basic needs.
The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), of course, has long been associated with support for left-leaning, Democrat, Big Government programs. SOS’s Nelson has, apparently, been a key operative in expanding its lobbying and political activism on behalf of the nanny state.
Not surprisingly, Bill and Debbie Shore have repeatedly used SOS as a platform to issue statements supporting President Obama’s programs and Michelle Obama’s child nutrition crusade (see here, here, and here).
According to the SOS/No Kid Hungry financial report for 2012, SOS had total operating expenses of $31.1 million. $7.7 million (25 percent) of that total was spent on additional fundraising. $22.1 million (71 percent) was spent on “program costs.”
No Kid Hungry lists as “Core Partners”:
ConAgra Foods Foundation
Food Network
Walmart Foundation
Partners who contributed “$1 Million Plus” include:
Arby’s Foundation
Clear Channel Communities
Food Network
Ignite Restaurant Group
JCPenney
Walmart Foundation
Partners that contributed $250,000 – $999,999:
American Express Company
C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc.
The Capital Grille?
The Colorado Health Foundation
ConAgra Foods Foundation
Corner Bakery Café
Deloitte
Denny’s
Domino Sugar and C&H Sugar
Duncan Hines
Food Network
New York City Wine & Food Festival
Hickory Farms?
Meredith Corporation / Family Circle
Penton Media, Inc.
Participant Media
Romano’s Macaroni Grill
Sodexo Foundation
Southern Wine and Spirits
Sysco Corporation
Tastefully Simple, Inc.
Weight Watchers International, Inc.
Of course, No Kids Hungry has received the equivalent of many millions of dollars in free promotional publicity from “progressive” reporters, editors, and commentators in the “mainstream” media. None of the stories we have seen even hint at the possibility that SOS/No Kids Hungry has a political agenda that involves lobbying for more money for SNAP and other government programs.
More than 48 million Americans are on the food stamp dole. Tens of millions more are on school lunch, school breakfast, after-school meals, summer meals, etc. Obamanomics is keeping the American economy mired in recession so that fewer Americans can find work, while also luring more Americans into dependency on government for sustenance so that fewer and fewer Americans have incentive to work and take responsibility for themselves and their families.
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