A lot of us (myself included) here in Manhattan often forget that hunger in our city and country is still a huge issue to this day, especially with how it abnormally affects children. No Kid Hungry has a mission to end childhood hunger in our lifetime, and they are taking that thought process on the road for their Dine Out for No Kid Hungry Bus Tour! It kicked off in Manhattan and will make its way all the way to Los Angeles with several city stops on the way. Today’s stop saw one of my personal favorite actors and comedians, Kenan Thompson, sit behind the wheel for this amazing adventure.
Here’s the background on what this trip will be doing. In New York and other cities across the country, when guests eat at a No Kid Hungry partner restaurant such as Arby’s, Habit Burger, Ruby Tuesdays, Ted’s Montana Grill, Shake Shack and Café Metro, they can donate in exchange for money-saving rewards. Every $1 donated connects a child to 10 meals. Kenan Thompson wants to make sure every kid like his daughter, Georgia, gets the food they need on a daily basis.
The staggering fact that 1 in 6 children don’t get the food that they need is one of the primary reasons why Kenan jumped on board this initiative. “A friend of mine told me about this, and it was one of those “duh” moments where i felt I had to join in. I saw another documentary about teen homelessness and those stats were outrageous as well. When I heard these stats, I was like, come on, this is America, the greatest country in the world, yet we are still allowing this sort of thing to happen. We got all these fast food places and chain restaurants, yet people are still hungry. It doesn’t make sense. So I wanted to join in”.
The first time Emmy nominee and longtime star of NBC’s Saturday Night Live told me that the smallest of change can help in a big capacity. “A $1 dollar donation at one of these participating restaurants will give a child 10 meals. That can do a lot for only one child, so think of how much we can all do collectively around the nation if we each donated $1.”
Last year, this nationwide restaurant fundraiser generated more than 900 million meals for kids. Pretty impressive, so let’s hope that this year will exceed what was done next year so that hunger will eventually be a thing of the past.
For more information on No Kid Hungry, please check out their official website.