Food Programs For Starving Americans

When asked what you would think could help make America great again what would be your first thought? The topic I have chosen to research about is how can we as Americans help pick each other up and come together to help one another. How can we forget about political views and focus on just showing love to each other? I think we can help pull America together by creating more food programs for starving Americans. I’m not just talking about food stamps also known as EBT (electronics benefits transfer) because those can be abused. I am talking about coming together as Americans and focusing on the people that can’t provide for their families. I feel that for us to be able to use a system, everyone whether you are homeless and can’t afford anything or you are just short on money to provide for your food after the bills are paid. Be helped the same way. This is also an opportunity to help create American jobs.

The reason I say that is because we can have departments put up, not just for registering the people who want to apply, but also helping them build up resumes and help print them getting the word out to other businesses.When driving through a big city you may see people that do not have much, but I have experienced first hand that you don’t have to “look” poor to be poor. When I lived with my mom we never knew if we would have working power or running water and we as kids didn’t have any clue if we were going to get to eat supper that night. I want to organize a department where people can come in confidence and know that their needs are trying to be met just as much as the person before and after them. One in every six people in America face hunger, so a way to combat that is to establish a certain amount of these businesses that help with food but also help with food transporting in a state. Food transportation should be based on its size and population and set these businesses up in poverty “hot zones”. In the U.S. this wouldn’t be too hard of a fix because the problem with hunger in America isn’t because lack of food.

The problem with hunger in America is people are trying to live off of food banks and food drives and aren’t trying to get a job. Some people just simply aren’t being given the opportunity to build up themselves and their families financially. In 2017, America was the number one food producing nation in the world. That being said about 40 million people are suffering from starvation and out of that 40 million, 12 million are kids. The population of America as of 2017 was 325.7 million. When you hear that number, 40 million and 12 million don’t sound too big, but the percentage of Americans starving is about 12%. That percentage is too high especially because the unemployment rate now is 3.9%, meaning that some people have jobs but still don’t have enough to provide. The Department of Agriculture said that in 506,000 households children faced "very low food security," up almost 200,000 over the previous year. Nearly 17 million children lived in homes where food was scarce at times, and more than one million of them were sometimes just plain hungry. This is a 45% increase from 12 million in 2007.

When I was growing up years 7-9 were very hard for me. I lived with my mom who was single and my three older siblings. My mom didn’t really make a lot of money and on top of that she didn’t know how to manage the money she did make. There were some times at that point in our lives as children that we didn’t know if we were going to eat that night. As a family we had already sacrificed power in our trailer and slept in one bedroom. We had running water sometimes but often we didn’t, and if our water had been cut off we would go to the field house at my school and take showers there. Even though I gained a great bond between my siblings during that time, we also had some very trying days. We were the family that didn’t have enough to pay for recreational ball and that hurt because even at a young age sports were a big part of my life. My mom told us to pick one sport to play and usually a coach would ask us to play another sport and he would pay for it. I’m glad I have such a strong bond with my brother because he pulled me through that, but what about the kids that do not have that bond or someone to talk to. We should start opening up the help centers and food drives more to give that child a better opportunity to just have a simple life and not be worried.

Anxiety in early childhood can lead to many other things. Things like drug abuse, depression, etc. We don’t need anymore things like that in America considering the things we are already dealing with. A good childhood can help us get a better start on life and if a parent isn’t capable of providing food for their kids that doesn’t mean they don’t love them. That means that they might just need a little bit of help and we can offer that today in America. In 2015 military spending was at 54%, meaning that the United States of America spent 598.5 billion. If we knocked that down to 52% just think of the money we could use to help the people in need as far as hunger. Getting our priorities straight and actually thinking of the people of this great nation and doing something about it is what I think will make America great again.