Photo courtesy of St. Louis Area Foodbank.
The students enrolled in East St. Louis schools haven’t attended class for more than a week, but approximately 100 to 120 of them have been stopping in for breakfast and taking home a sack lunch each school day since a teachers’ strike shuttered classrooms on October 1.
The numbers might seem minimal considering East St. Louis schools enroll around 6,100 students, but the emphasis on continuing a breakfast and lunch program serves as a striking statement about the realities of food insecurity, not only in East St. Louis, but around the region and the nation as a whole.
In the 26 counties served by the St. Louis Area Foodbank, which includes East St. Louis and the rest of St. Clair County in Illinois, more than 20 percent of children face food insecurity, according to a piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Frank Finnegan, the organization’s president and CEO. Nationally, 48.8 million Americans, including 16.2 million children, live in food insecure households whose members lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis. As a result, they struggle with hunger at some time during the year, according to data from No Kid Hungry.
At East St. Louis Schools, those statistics translate into 100 percent of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch because the number of students whose families fall below income guidelines is so great that the program extends to every pupil. So student hunger is an issue even when school is in session.
“If you are able to sit in class, and you are able to focus and be healthy, it’s such a huge contributor to your overall success,” says Kelli Hawkins, director of communications and public affairs for the district.
To be sure, food insecurity is linked to increased hospitalizations for kids, developmental problems, headaches, stomachaches and even colds. Childhood hunger has also been tied to significant long-term health problem and even children’s ability to become productive members of the workforce as adults. Given those facts, administrators in East St. Louis thought it was important to continue serving breakfast and lunch during the strike and provide transportation for students who want to take advantage of the program, says Hawkins. The district began the breakfast and lunch program on October 2, and Hawkins says she expects the number of students who take advantage of meals to increase as the strike continues.
“Although we are not able to provide the academic component, it is a school environment,” says Hawkins, who explained school administrators are on site to interact with students. “So we are trying to do the very best we can under some very unfortunate circumstances.”
Many parents and caregivers struggling with food insecurity would likely say the same. But their hardships won’t end with the East St. Louis teachers’ strike.
For more information on the issue of food insecurity, contact the St. Louis Area Foodbank.
Charlene Oldham is a writer and teacher. She lives in Crestwood.
