Kaitlyn F. Virginia

President, stop hunger now.

A letter to the President discussing world hunger and the causes.

Dear President,

There are about 795 million people that don’t have enough to eat in the world. That’s about 1 in 9 people on earth. To put that in perspective, there’s roughly thirty people in my classroom; that would be about 3 people that don’t have enough food on their tables at night. Most of the people in America face “food insecurity” which is lack of access to food, or money to provide. A lot of times, in our country, people fall into the “poverty trap.” People in poverty can not afford nutritious food, this makes them weak, and it makes it much harder to earn money to buy food. World Food Programme says “The vast majority of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished.” A lot of times in 3rd world countries, places in Africa and Asia, the causes of hunger, include, lack in agricultural infrastructure, climate and weather, war, unstable markets and governments, and food shortage and wastage.

Being a first world country, we have the resources to help these other countries more than we have. We can go on mission trips, and we can send supplies over to these countries. They need to get nutrition, they are the children, the future generation of these countries. If they die, then who will be the future? In our own country we should donate, and volunteer. Those two little things could help thousands of people, especially if we get involved with programs that deal with this on the daily. John A. Sparks wrote an article saying: “The atmosphere in which problems of world hunger are discussed today is charged with emotion. Formerly there were those who quite properly called our attention to hunger in the world and advocated voluntary Christian charity as a response. But, increasingly, there is a harsher sound to the "hunger rhetoric." No one should disagree that hunger is a problem. I think as children we brush it aside, because it isn’t our problem directly. “We only want to help because children are dying,” this is not true, not for me at least. My goal is to end this for everyone. Mostly, women don’t have enough food, we need to empower women to gain access to food. We also need to educate the people on birth control, and teach them about better opportunities.

Jenson Coleman said “In 2015, 5.0 percent of U.S. households (6.3 million households) had very low food security, down from 5.6 percent in 2014. In this more severe range of food insecurity, the food intake of some household members was reduced and normal eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year due to limited resources.” Personally, I want to be able to volunteer in soup kitchens, and someday it’s important to me to go on a mission trip to these countries and try to help any way I can. My family and I already put together backpacks for children, and their families that don’t have meals for the weekends. There’s already so many great programs, including, “World Food Programme, and Stop Hunger Now.”

America has the power to put an end to this someday. This problem has such an easy solution, we just need to see it through. Will we sit around, and watch or stand up to the fight to end World Hunger? It’s up to you President. Let’s work together to educate the people, and bring Hunger to it’s knees. I know I’m young, but we can do these small things, donating, and volunteering. It will become our problem eventually. Let’s make sure that does not happen.

Sincerely, Kaitlyn F.      

John A. Sparks “Perspectives on Hunger in The World.” Foundation for Economic Education, n.d. https://fee.org/articles/perspectives-on-hunger-in-the-world/ Web. November.1978

Jenson Coleman “World Hunger.” Fight Hunger with Knowledge, n.d. http://www.worldhunger.org/ Web. 2016

“World Food Programme.” n.d. http://www.wfp.org/ Web. 2016