At a time when major national businesses like banking and the auto industry have sought and received massive financial support from taxpayers, the restaurant industry, though hit hard by the recession, has been finding ways not to take but to give back. It is characteristic of an industry that always has had its roots in community and has long modeled ways of doing well by doing good.
For more than 25 years Share Our Strength has worked with thousands of restaurants and foodservice organizations in the fight against hunger. They have participated in food and wine events like Taste of the Nation and helped teach nutrition, healthy eating, and food budgeting skills to low-income families through Operation Frontline. They have worked to educate and organize employees and customers alike in the many ways they can share their strength to help end hunger.
The most broad-based effort of all has been The Great American Dine Out, in which literally thousands of restaurants from chains to independents have donated a percentage of proceeds to help ensure that no child goes hungry here in our own country. Last year 4,000 restaurants registered. This year the event will take place from Sept. 20-26 with the potential to have an even greater impact.
The one thing we know for sure is that the need is greater than ever.
At the beginning of August, the government announced that more than 34 million Americans are on food stamps—now known as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance—for the first time in America’s history. The population of those in need of assistance not only is growing rapidly, but changing dramatically. Record numbers of Americans who always have worked hard enough to get by are finding themselves with nowhere to turn for the first time in their lives. Most have no experience in navigating the system. Every day there are newspaper articles from around the country about lines forming for assistance. This is not just the case for hunger, but also for health care, housing, employment and numerous other services.
Share Our Strength continues to fund hundreds of community anti-hunger agencies that must increase capacity to accommodate the increased need. But we also are providing the leadership to help fulfill President Obama’s pledge of ending childhood hunger by 2015 by organizing statebased efforts to close the gap between the number of children eligible to participate in existing food and nutrition programs, and the unacceptably low percentage who actually are enrolled.
In Maryland for example, where Gov. Martin O’Malley has set the goal of being the first state to end childhood hunger, 16 percent more Maryland children are receiving food stamp benefits, and 24,000 more are enrolled in school breakfast programs. Kids in 25 more Maryland day care centers will receive healthy snacks.
Children in America are not hungry because our nation lacks food. We have no shortage of public and private food and nutrition programs, either. Kids are hungry because they lack access to those programs. Hungry children eligible for food stamps, school breakfast or summer feeding may find themselves in communities not organized to fully participate in those programs. In addition to funding the emergency food assistance that food banks provide, we are supporting the leadership and community organizing that gives hungry kids access to already authorized and appropriated funds and thereby leverages your support into substantially greater resources.
The Great American Dine Out is a great way to help Share Our Strength continue this progress while giving customers an additional reason to come into your restaurant. Please support the Dine Out by signing up on our website at
Through the Dine Out, the restaurant industry can not only play a decisive role in ending childhood hunger, but it also can demonstrate how an industry, during tough economic times, can put the national interest first.
Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, based in Washington, D.C.
