Oblivious to Children's Hunger

Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis is staking out a strong position on child hunger: She's for it.

"Hunger can be a positive motivator," she notes in the latest edition of her newsletter.

More precisely, Davis is against summer feeding programs for poor kids. They are an excuse "to create an expansion of a government program," she says.

Davis, a Republican, chairs the Missouri House of Representatives Special Standing Committee on Children and Families. In that position, she might be expected to have insight into child hunger in our state.

She might know, for instance, that about one in five Missouri children lives with hunger. That ties Missouri with Louisiana for the nation's seventh-highest rate, according to a report released in May by the hunger-relief charity Feeding America.

Or that the recession has pushed the number of poor Missouri kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches to 8.3 percent this year, well above the national average.

Apparently not.

"While I have not seen this as a problem in my district, it is entirely possible that the (summer feeding) program is designed to address problems that exist in other parts of Missouri," Davis says in her newsletter.

"The right way to solve this is with more education. If parents ... don't know how to serve nutritious meals, let's help them learn to do that."

In that spirit, she offers some helpful hints:

— "Families may economize by choosing not to waste hard-earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream or Twinkies."

— "Laid-off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat."

— "Tip: If you work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break."

About 100,000 more people are unemployed in Missouri today than were jobless in 2007.

Food pantries across the state are struggling to meet increased demand. The United Way of St. Louis and more than 100 area companies are participating in a food drive this week.

And the plain, tragic fact is some children have parents who aren't particularly interested in caring for them. Ward Cleaver and Cliff Huxtable are off the television airways.

But Davis is skeptical about the need to feed poor children during the summer when schools are closed.

If — if — there really is one, she says, "churches and non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer."

Or maybe not.

"Most of our 18 (summer feeding program) sites are churches," explains Rosemary Terranova, who oversees the program for St. Louis County.

"We're trying to support churches that want to offer some kind of summer recreation program for kids," she says. "They supply the staff, we supply the food."

The program "has been a real blessing to us," says Caroline Crenshaw of Bethesda Temple in St. Louis, where 40 children attended day care last week while their parents worked.

The summer feeding program's cost is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which pays about $1.81 for each breakfast served and $3.18 for each lunch.

Last year, 3.7 million meals were served by the summer feeding program at a total cost of less than $9.5 million. That's a pretty good use of federal money.

In the same generous spirit as Davis, we'd like to offer a suggestion.

— Tip: When you chair a state special committee on children and families, you probably ought to learn something about the needs of children and families.

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