Oblivious to the needs of Missouri’s hungry children
State Rep. Cynthia Davis offers a tip to hungry families.
State Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O’Fallon, is staking out a strong position on child hunger: She’s for it.
“Hunger can be a positive motivator,” she notes in the latest edition of her newsletter.
More precisely, Ms. Davis is against summer feeding programs for poor kids. They are an excuse “to create an expansion of a government program,” she says.
Ms. Davis chairs the House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families. In that position, she might be expected to have insight into child hunger in our state.
She might know, for instance, that about one in five Missouri children lives with hunger. That ties us with Louisiana for the nation’s seventh-highest rate, according to a report released last month by the hunger-relief charity Feeding America.
Or that the recession has pushed the number of poor Missouri kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches by 8.3 percent this year, well above the national average.
Apparently not.
”While I have not seen this as a problem in my district, it is entirely possible that the (summer feeding) program is designed to address problems that exist in other parts of Missouri,” Ms. Davis says in her newsletter.
“The right way to solve this is with more education. If parents … don’t know how to serve nutritious meals, let’s help them learn to do that.”
In that spirit, she offers some helpful hints:
• “Families may economize by choosing not to waste hard earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream or Twinkies.”
• “Laid-off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat.”
• “Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.”
About 100,000 more people are unemployed in Missouri today than were jobless in 2007. Food pantries across the state are struggling to meet increased demand. The United Way of St. Louis and more than 100 area companies are participating in a food drive this week.
And the plain, tragic fact is some children have parents who aren’t particularly interested in caring for them. Ward Cleaver and Cliff Huxtable are off the television airways.
But Ms. Davis is skeptical about the need to feed poor children during the summer when schools are closed.
If — if — there really is one, she says, “churches and non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer.”
Or maybe not.
“Most of our 18 (summer feeding program) sites are churches,” explains Rosemary Terranova, who oversees the program for St. Louis County.
“We’re trying to support churches that want to offer some kind of summer recreation program for kids,” she says. “They supply the staff, we supply the food.”
The program “has been a real blessing to us,” says Caroline Crenshaw of Bethesda Temple in Normandy, where 40 children attended day care last week while their parents worked.
The summer feeding program’s cost is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which pays about $1.81 for each breakfast served and $3.18 for each lunch.
Last year, 3.7 million meals were served by the summer feeding program at a total cost of less than $9.5 million. That’s a pretty good use of federal money.
In the same generous spirit as Ms. Davis, we’d like to offer a suggestion.
• Tip: When you chair a state special committee on children and families, you probably ought to learn something about the needs of children and families.
What did all these hungry kids do before welfare?
Jamie Gump is right. Pay (lack thereof) is also a positive motivator. Let’s take Davis’ away and see how many strawberries she can shove down her piehole before the money runs out.
I’m trying to figure out why Cynthia wears a cross? Clearly it has nothing to do with Christianity…
I’ve lived on one meal a day from McDonald’s, while I waited the first few weeks for my paycheck to begin. By the end of the first month, I was bleeding internally from a multi-systemic infection. Nope, not joking.
Ms. Davis, I suggest you try it sometime! You know, just so you can find out what it’s like. Surely it will motivate you in some way.
To wacko_liberal, who asked: “What did all these hungry kids do before welfare?”
…They died.
This woman should resign from her position. What a mean and insensitive witch.
I’ll bet she is a member of the “Jesus wants you to be rich” theology that is currently popular….Sheesh- are those people truly that horrid or are they just ignorant ?
Boy, you can hear the banjos playing in Missouri from here.
It is one thing to be ignorant and completely out of touch, but it is another to publicly advertise it. Is this the most heartless rube in government or just the stupidest? These programs feed children who do not have food on their tables. Obviously (maybe not to DuhDavis) the vast majority of these children are not of age to get a job at McDonalds. (hint: When you get voted out of office next term go apply your privileged ass at McDonalds and see how many of your bills you can pay.)
This is the most difficult financial times that most of us have faced in our lifetimes. Hard to believe you are as ugly on the inside as your are on the outside. Hunger does not motivate anyone. It cripples. But you have fiercely motivated me and I have begun to organize as many of my friends and colleagues to collect donations for whomever your opponent may be in your next election.
Here’s to the day your reap what you sew you moron.
Ms Davis, you don’t look as if you are hungry with your strawberries. Say, are you a mother? If you have children or maybe grandchildren, have they ever gone to bed hungry because your pantry was bare? What excactly are you trying to say??? On the contrary, I may not want to understand your way of thinking, it is way to far out there. How can you be a state rep. with such UNBELIEVABLY sick ideas. Lady maybe YOU should be in the position of the children . Maybe you should have to experience hunger for a while. Maybe you are the one who should be hungry enough to get a job at Mc Donalds so you can look forward to a free lunch. The people that I see working at Mc Donalds are already the ones that are hungry, or do you think that adults working at Mc Donalds are making enough money to feed their children??? On top of your crazy way of thinking woman, have you ever heard of fast foods being the most unhealthy food??? If you have children I truely feel sorry for them!
Phyllis from Texas,
Heck, if you were an alcoholic and your ex-husband a coke addict, do you really expect us to believe that you had the funds to feed and care for your children not even working full time waiting tables and, without a high school diploma? Money had to be coming from some other source in order to properly feed and care for you and your children not to mention your addict ex-husband?
I truly don’t think that you are recalling things as they really were due to addictions back then or it was truly a miracle.