JACKSBORO, TN — Teacher Brooke Goins cried and cried and cried in front of her young students last week, unable to stop the tears after one of them opened her eyes about how even a simple can of SpaghettiOs can comfort millions of hungry kids in America.
“Those little O’s,” the Jacksboro, Tennessee, boy told Goins as he made a small circle with his hand, “we don’t have those at my house, but when I do have them, they give me a warm belly and help me sleep.”
That’s when Goins “lost it,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
“Today I cried for a child, a child who so innocently talked about food, and the lack of it,” she wrote. “I cried in front of 20 little people. “No kid should be hungry, ever.”
But they are hungry.
The boy whose story broke the Tennessee teacher’s heart is among 13 million hungry American children who don’t have enough food to eat. Real hunger, the kind the boy experiences regularly, is painful and can leave kids lightheaded and lethargic. When their brains aren’t fueled, they’re not ready to learn.
In Campbell County, where Jacksboro is located, almost 25 percent of children are food-insecure. That’s 2,000 kids, or one in six children, according to Feeding America. About 88 percent of them are part of families that qualify for food stamps, and another 12 percent are in families that are likely eligible for government help to buy food, the hunger-relief organization says.
Related: America’s Hungry Kids: 13M Children Don’t Have Enough To Eat
The boy in Goins’ class had asked a simple question: When was the lady who puts food in his backpack coming?
“He told me he as out of it at home and needed more,” she wrote.
Goins immediately texted other teachers. Could they help fill the boy’s backpack?
“Remember, hearing people say that we spend all our money in our classrooms,” she wrote. “We spend it to make sure that our kids have what they need to succeed, and today we bought food. Yep, we put our money together and made sure that this sweet baby had some SpaghettiOs!”
Her post became an anthem for the nation’s teachers, estimated to spend an average of $459 a year for school supplies, but also shone a beacon on the problem of hunger in Campbell County and across America.
Closing the hunger gap among Campbell County kids would cost about $1.5 million, Feeding America says. Some groups are helping out, including Mount Paron Baptist Church, which delivers food bags to Jacksboro Elementary School kids on most Fridays.
“We don’t know what our students go home to,” first-grade teacher Brittani Stooksbury, who joined in Goins’ plea for help buying her student some groceries, told news station WBIR. “I want them to come to school knowing that we care about them and we love them.”
The boy’s story is similar to those Gay Anderson hears in her capacity as the president of the School Nutrition Association. He could be any child in any city of America.
“We’re talking about really hungry kids — the ones who look forward to getting that backpack of food to take home for the weekend,” Anderson, a child nutrition director at a SouthDakota school district, told Patch for a story earlier this year on Feeding America’s state-of-childhood-hunger report.
“I’ve heard many times, ‘Oh my gosh, look what we get,’ and seen the excitement in knowing they’re going to have some food to eat,” Anderson said.
Goins’ Facebook post has been liked, shared and commented on tens of thousands of times. As a result, the boy’s family has enough food to last for several weeks, including over fall break. His situation exposed a similar plight for other kids, and the Jacksboro Elementary School will now have access to a pantry stocking food and hygiene products.whenever they need them.
Principals at Goins’ and Stooksbury’s schools are solidly behind the food pantry.
“They’re like, ‘Do whatever you need to do,,’ ” Goins told WBIR.
Goin said making sure the children in her class have enough to eat is just part of her job, and critical to their success in the classroom and life.
“It’s not that we ever do it for praise. I mean, you just do it. You make sure they’re taken care of,” she told the news station. “We love them — all of them.”
If you’d like to help, donations may be made to:
Jacksboro Elementary School
Att’n: FOOD PANTRY
164 Jacksboro Elementary School Road
Jacksboro, TN 37757
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