Feed the most desperate
Have you ever experienced hunger on a daily basis? I don't mean that little hunger pang you feel right before meal time. I mean real hunger that robs you of energy, stamina and joy from your life. I am fortunate enough not to have that kind of experience, but I got a really good idea what it must be like from a documentary called "Living on One Dollar". It's an interesting story about a few brave American college students living in rural Guatemala with only $1 a day for two months. Highly recommend it!
I wish we could have shown our kids the same documentary, but it admittedly is not a suitable kind for young children to watch, so instead we opted to teach our students about hunger issue through a video clip and a series of true or false questions.
**disclaimer.. the kids are sitting close from the screen because our speaker system was not working and they needed to be close from the laptop...**
We then demonstrated the world's unbalanced food distribution by giving out skittles in a disproportionate way. Please ask your child(ren) which "group" they belonged to and how many skittles they got.
One of the true or false question was this: Kids can't do anything about the hunger issue.
If you have been following KidsServe, the answer must have come easy. The answer is "FALSE"!
One of the things we learned about was the hunger issue here in northern VA. In Fairfax county alone, 20% of the children receive reduced or free meal support at public schools. That is ONE in FIVE kids!! One of the sad facts is that many of these children do not get to eat much over the weekend when they don't have the meal support at school. Hence the "weekend meal support" comes in. We have partnered with our neighbor church Floris United Methodist Church who has actively supported this program over the years. They have graciously provided us with more than half of the food supply to pack.
The kids got to work.
Our students worked very hard at packing many food items into bags. The food items included mac and cheese, ravioli, crackers, fruit snack, drink, etc. At the end of our meeting, we counted all 108 bags packed. That is 108 less kids going hungry over a weekend. Well done, my students!
After the hard work, we played a game that again demonstrated the unfair food distribution. I think our kids had enough of learning about "unfairness in the world"...
We encourage you to ask your children what they remember about the lesson. I hope that they didn't leave feeling simply sad guilty or even angry about the world's uneven food distribution or extreme poverty and huger that exist. Instead, our prayer is that our students will learn the importance of awareness of issues and most importantly to take action, just as it is written in the Bible:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
<James 2:14-17>
Next meeting will be the last one for this school year! (unbelievable!!)
until then!
KidsServe
I wish we could have shown our kids the same documentary, but it admittedly is not a suitable kind for young children to watch, so instead we opted to teach our students about hunger issue through a video clip and a series of true or false questions.
We then demonstrated the world's unbalanced food distribution by giving out skittles in a disproportionate way. Please ask your child(ren) which "group" they belonged to and how many skittles they got.
One of the true or false question was this: Kids can't do anything about the hunger issue.
If you have been following KidsServe, the answer must have come easy. The answer is "FALSE"!
One of the things we learned about was the hunger issue here in northern VA. In Fairfax county alone, 20% of the children receive reduced or free meal support at public schools. That is ONE in FIVE kids!! One of the sad facts is that many of these children do not get to eat much over the weekend when they don't have the meal support at school. Hence the "weekend meal support" comes in. We have partnered with our neighbor church Floris United Methodist Church who has actively supported this program over the years. They have graciously provided us with more than half of the food supply to pack.
The kids got to work.
After the hard work, we played a game that again demonstrated the unfair food distribution. I think our kids had enough of learning about "unfairness in the world"...
We encourage you to ask your children what they remember about the lesson. I hope that they didn't leave feeling simply sad guilty or even angry about the world's uneven food distribution or extreme poverty and huger that exist. Instead, our prayer is that our students will learn the importance of awareness of issues and most importantly to take action, just as it is written in the Bible:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
<James 2:14-17>
Next meeting will be the last one for this school year! (unbelievable!!)
until then!
KidsServe
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