Love & Food: Turn the Tables on Child Hunger

This post is sponsored by Unilever.

With two growing kids, it seems like someone is always complaining about being hungry or needing a snack in my house. While they might not realize it, I know how fortunate we are to have a stocked refrigerator, freezer and pantry. Their hunger is a far cry from the more than 16 million kids in America who really suffer from hunger.

Their pantries are empty. But we can help change that.

I was incredibly moved by this 4-minute documentary “Going to Bed Hungry: The Changing Face of Child Hunger” and the stories of the families in it.

The film was created by Unilever Project Sunlight, which is an initiative focused on encouraging people to create a brighter future for children – by taking small steps to live sustainably, use less and share even more. This fall the initiative is focused on child hunger and encourages people like you and me to get involved and uncover the reasons they share a meal. I am so honored to share about this with you all because creating a life well-crafted isn’t just about fun DIYs and shopping deals – it is about cultivating good.

We often talk about serving others in our community with Elias and Adeline, but this video prompted me to be even more intentional about that. With 1 in 5 children unaware where their next meal is coming from, one of these children could be a neighbor or classmate.

Here are three ways we are teaching our young kids about the importance of serving others who are hungry:

Giving to local food banks: This past week, I bought a bunch of Halloween Kraft mac and cheese on clearance at Target to donate to our church’s food bank. Elias saw the bag of it in the car and asked me why I had bought so much. We talked about how we were going to take it to church to share it with other families who didn’t have the means to buy food for their children.

Donate money: Our kids each have a piggy bank that they save money for giving to others. I think this holiday season we will encourage them to give to a food bank as a way to help other kids in need.

Spreading the word: I often talk to them about mommy’s job of writing to share things with other mommies. Last night we talked about how mommy was writing about kids who needed food. We looked at pictures on Instagram with the tag #ShareaMeal and talked about why we should share meals with others. They loved seeing so many photos of kids with signs and wanted to get involved, so we wrote down why they thought we should #ShareaMeal and posted it to Instagram (see the photo above).

This isn’t complicated. Kids are hungry. We can help. As the documentary says, love and food go hand-in-hand. I want to teach my kids to love others well. Let’s turn the tables on child hunger.

To learn more visit ProjectSunlight and follow along on Twitter and Facebook. Use #ShareAMeal and join the conversation!

How will you Share A Meal?

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Unilever. The opinions and text are all mine. Comments submitted may be displayed on other websites owned by the sponsoring brand.