Helping Combat Food Insecurity

Food insecurity is a real problem all over the world. The freshmen class has been learning about it for the past month. Nick Wolfe, the 9th grade Modern World teacher teamed up with Alyssa Smith, the Wellness teacher to come up with a project to take action.

Food insecurity means that people do not have the resources to meet all of their food needs. According to Our World In Data.Org, 697 million people are severely food insecure.

In most stores, prices are high for good quality food, but some families in the U.S. can only spend $90 on groceries a month. This means that they have to buy cheap food or they don’t eat, so most families with food insecurity buy processed foods so that they can eat. However, these foods aren’t good for them which means that they aren’t very healthy either.

All ninth graders did a project to help with food insecurity in the U.S. Some made posters, others contributed to food banks. There were many different varieties of what people did to help.

“With taking action it’s real you are doing something that benefits others, not just grades,” Mr. Wolfe says about the project.

“I liked it because you had freedom to research what you wanted,” Charlie Ward says. Charlie is just one of the ninth graders who has done the project. His project was focused on the food shelters that we have and where we can put new ones. He googled where the food banks in Vermont were and he analyzed where there were gaps. He then called the Vermont Food Bank Society and discussed this challenge.

“It takes a lot to help people with food insecurity, but the research that we did is a step towards helping people,” Charlie says.

“Knowledge about food insecurity is definitely needed;” Stella Capurso says. Stella did a poster on what food insecurity is, and how people can help.

In addition to Mr. Wolfe's project, Ms. Smith also taught the ninth grade about food insecurity. She had ninth graders research food prices in Vermont to understand the challenge of healthy eating on a budget.

The ninth grade class took a step to help with food insecurity. Now it’s everyone's job to chip in.