Project SEED is starting its TENTH year!

Imagine how it feels to go to bed hungry.

How healthy, productive, and attentive would you be if you were hungry in the morning? Imagine how that affects a young child. How can we expect that child to learn if they're hungry when they come to school at the start of each week? If they have not eaten all weekend they are not ready to take on the challenges of math, science and reading. In fact, hunger has a negative affect on their growth and development and their general health in addition to their ability to concentrate effectively.

Child nutrition is a critical problem in the United States, and most schools participate in a federal program that provides free or reduced meals to qualifying children every day. That is, every school day. For many qualifying children, the free or reduced breakfasts and lunches they receive in this program are the only meals they will eat that day. As alarming as that is, what's worse is that those same children often go without any food at all on the weekends.

As disturbing as the thought of hungry children can be, what is most disturbing is that these are children in our own small towns and cities. These children are right here in the Alle-Kiski Valley. The poverty rate in our immediate area is outpacing all of Southwestern Pennsylvania. One in four children locally lives in a food insecure home.

Get involved! We need your donations to solve this problem. Whether it's giving your time, money, food or event sponsorship, your help is critical. Let's plant the seeds of knowledge in our young people--let's make sure they have the nutrition they need to learn!

Here's what we're doing about childhood hunger in our area.

Project SEED addresses the problem of childhood hunger in a very simple and direct way. Project SEED (Something to Eat Every Day) provides a bag of food every Friday during the school year for students to take home. The bag contains nourishing food for the weekend to supplement the free lunch program the children receive at school during the week. Project SEED ensures that children don't go to bed hungry just because it's a weekend. We want kids to come to school on Monday morning ready to learn rather than just ready to eat.

We are extremely proud of our Guiding Principles - Since Day 1:

• We turn no one away.

• We are very discreet in distributing the food so that children do not have to experience the embarrassment of standing in line for free food.

• EVERY PENNY that is donated goes to buying food for the children.