Team No Kid Hungry

The support of partners like Food Network is crucial in supporting our work to connect every kid with healthy food, every day

Last year, thousands of Habit Burger customers donated to support kids in need through No Kid Hungry. Thanks to their generosity, we'll be able to provide two million meals to kids, an incredible feat.

One might think that Cooking Matters volunteers are all alike. They're all committed to the same cause; therefore, they must have similar backgrounds, passions, beliefs, and ideas. Actually, the opposite is true. These past five months, I have met the most incredible and diverse volunteers through Cooking Matters.

Even though I am not old enough to vote, and you may not be old enough to vote, legislators care about what we think. We are the future leaders of our nation and we can add our voices to those who are old enough to vote and help make a difference to hungry Americans.

More than 1,100 students from around the country entered this year's Generation No Kid Hungry Photo Essay contest - sharing their perspectives on hunger and poverty in the United States.

Americans waste 40% of food, or roughly 133 billion pounds every year in the United States. On average, each of us wastes 15 to 20% of our own food each year. While terrifying quantities of food go uneaten every day, one in six Americans don't know where their next meal will come from. Of these Americans, 16 million of them are hungry children. Children are going hungry and we could be feeding them with the billions of pounds of healthy food being thrown away.

What drew me most to the Cooking Matters program was the concept of empowerment. Of taking situations like hunger, chronic disease, and poverty and turning them into opportunities for education and avenues for change. What makes this program unique is that it considers its participants heroes of their circumstances, not victims. As resourceful and proactive, not as careless and lazy. As having control of their lives and the possessing the ability to change.