Ending childhood hunger is an issue we can all get behind, regardless of political affiliation. Read below to see how Hamza learned that important lesson.
One of my favorite No Kid Hungry logos is a picture of a donkey and elephant standing side by side with a small heart between them and a giant “Team No Kid Hungry” banner on top. The photo reminds a very pessimistic side of me that there are issues that go beyond political party ideology, and hunger relief is one of those issues. I love the feeling that the work I’m doing is, however small, making a difference in people’s lives. It’s the type of work that is removed from politics and calls on people’s drive to do good. Working on the No Kid Hungry bake sale this July reassured me of that fact, and proved to me that ending childhood hunger is an issue that everyone can agree on.
My coworkers and I spread out across the central Arkansas region to find restaurants and bakeries that would be willing to donate food for the bake sale. The first stop was at a popular local café. We walked in and said that we were putting on a community bake sale to support the No Kid Hungry campaign. We briefly described the campaign, which amounted to saying, “helps feed children throughout the country and in the state too”. We received five dozen custom cookies; the whole process took four minutes.
The first cafe wasn’t an outlier: it was just the beginning of a near identical chain of events. I would walk into a bakery, tell them a little about what we were trying to do, and walk out with an order form for 2 dozen cupcakes or 15 baguettes. It was amazing to see all these different managers and owners guarantee food for us on the spot. I would ask if the restaurant would want a letterhead from our organization, the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, to help confirm that all the food was going to the bake sale. One of the owners I asked just looked at me and said, “Nah, I like the cause and I can trust you.” This bakery was a bit further away from the Alliance and had not worked with us for before, as many of the other volunteers had. However, because of the type of work the Alliance and No Kid Hungry work on together, the manager was still compelled to donate; he wanted to trust me, so he did.
That’s the reason I love the work that I do. People want to help anti-hunger efforts, and I can see genuine good happening. People want to make sure children are fed and will support efforts that allow that to happen, no matter their political affiliation. It’s why we held a successful bake sale, and it’s why I want to keep doing this type of work in the future.
