Are We Saving Our Children?

Our hungry children

Have you ever been hungry? Have you ever gone without a meal, not because you wanted to but because you had to? Do you know what it feels like to be starving, not because it’s a fast day but because you only have two nickels in your pocket to rub together, enough perhaps to buy a stick of licorice?
In our hometown of Toronto, thousands of children wake up every morning, and lay their tired heads down at night, hungry.

What a painful reality.

Consider the following facts found on the website of Mazon Canada (which describes itself as the “Jewish response to hunger” – mazoncanada.ca): 140,000 people in the Toronto area use food relief programs, and the percentage of food recipients who go hungry at least a couple days a week is 36 per cent. The number of children in food bank households is 50,400, and the number of children who go hungry at least once a month is 18,497.

The federal government made a commitment in 1989 to end child poverty by 2000. But by 2003, children were still the most notable victims of poverty-related hunger. Unfortunately, the chances of ending child poverty in the next decade are as good as the Toronto Maple Leaf’s winning a Stanley Cup in 2008.

Hunger is indeed a serious problem, both here in Toronto and across Canada. According to Mazon, almost one million Canadians receive emergency food hampers each month, a figure that has risen 122 per cent since 1989 (and 8.5 per cent since 2003). Even more disappointing is that of these food bank recipients, 40 per cent are children – 317,242 to be precise, 166,242 more then in 1989. Mazon adds that “there are far more hungry Canadians than these numbers indicate.”

Ask any teacher for the signs of a hungry child. Ask your child’s teacher. He or she will tell you that hungry children can suffer from anxiety, depression, social problems and/or attention problems. The National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine in the United States have conducted studies that show children who suffer from malnutrition have lower IQs and “score worse than their peers on arithmetic, writing, spatial memory and other cognitive tests.”

It’s crucial that we are become aware of this devastating problem that’s going on all around us. The thought that a little child is hungry in the morning, or has no lunch in his or her bag is heartbreaking.

Your gut response in reading this sad news might be to say that these facts reflect bad situations in Regent Park or near Jane and Finch. The earth-shattering reality, however, is that they also reflect a problem that affects many of our children, some of whom attend Jewish day schools. Poverty exists inside and outside the Jewish community.

Fred, the fellow who put flowers where David Rosenzweig was killed a few years ago, told me that he would frequently be asked by young children at Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue if he could buy them a burger or something else to eat, because they hadn’t eaten that day. They were hungry. Child poverty is everywhere and pays no attention to religion or culture.

How can you help? Familiarize yourself with the problem. Some important websites include www.campaign2000.ca and www.ncjwc.org, the site of the National Council of Jewish Woman of Canada (NCJWC).

Then consider supporting organizations such as Mazon and NCJWC in their quest to help eradicate child hunger and poverty. Join with them. Play a role in strengthening our community and city by ensuring that our members, be they five or 85, are cared for, in accordance with Midrash Psalms 118:17: “When you are asked in the world to come, ‘What was your work?’ and you answer, ‘I fed the hungry,’ you will be told, ‘This is the gate of the Lord, enter into it, you who have fed the hungry.’”