Today, Feeding America released the Map the Meal Gap: Child Food Insecurity 2011 study which provides a detailed look into the number of children in America that are under the age of 18 that go hungry every year.

The study reveals that there are children struggling with hunger in every county in America. Nationally, while one in six Americans overall don’t have proper access to the food they need, the rate for children is much higher: nearly one in four children are at risk of hunger.

It also provides information on Second Harvest Heartland’s service area in which it found that there are more than 200,000 children under the age of 18 that are currently struggling with hunger.

Child hunger is simply unacceptable. The new information gained from this study will help us develop even more ways to improve our child hunger programs like the Summer Food Service Program which provides meals to children who may otherwise go hungry during the summer or the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides a box of nutritious food each month through the Mothers and Children Program (MAC).

For more details on this study check out the entire interactive map here.

“What’s so hard is watching families who are working so hard—they’re working jobs, they’re earning money, and their dollars just don’t go far enough.”

-Dr. Megan Sandel, Boston Medical Center

Last week, ABC World News issued a report on the prevalence of child hunger in America. At Second Harvest Heartland, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in need…and we know that today, 40% of the people we serve are children under the age of 18.  According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, the number of children living in poverty in the U.S. is up nearly 20% from 2000.

Watch the video from ABC World News below, and as always, thank you for your support of hunger-relief for children and their families in our communities.