by Steve Wytcherley

Every year when school starts up, Oregon’s kids are back learning, and for many, enjoying the most important meal of the day in school: breakfast.

We know that kids who eat breakfast in the morning are more alert during the school day and perform better in the classroom. For the one in four kids who comes to school hungry, getting to eat a nutritious breakfast at school is essential to their overall health and wellbeing.

We also know that about 315,000 kids are eligible for free and reduced price breakfast and yet only about 110,000 are eating breakfast in school. Together with our partners, that’s what we are working on—closing that breakfast gap. It takes all of us working together, and here is how it looked this week!

Cambia Health Solutions employees volunteering to help end child hunger in Oregon!

For the third year in a row, we’re holding the November School Breakfast Challenge, a statewide campaign that encourages kids to eat school breakfast. This fall, schools across Oregon involved in the Challenge will increase awareness, encourage effective breakfast models and increase daily participation in the school breakfast program, with prizes going to those with the biggest increase.

Fun activities in the Challenge will include:

• Student taste-tests and new breakfast menu idea samples
• Local “celebrities” or popular figures serving school breakfast
• Bring a family member to breakfast days

Each school that signs up receives a toolkit with promotional banners, posters, activities, community engagement tips and a “Let’s Do Breakfast, Oregon!” apron for the kitchen staff. With over 2,500 materials to assemble, we needed help!

That’s where our friends at Cambia Health Solutions jumped in. Many employees gave up an afternoon to help us assemble supplies and pack boxes to send to schools all the way from Coos Bay to Roseburg to Umatilla. Teachers and nutrition staff will be working hard to get more kids eating breakfast through this November and beyond.

We could not do this without the partnerships that fund our work, and that includes you. If you buy your groceries at Safeway or Albertsons, you may be giving to fund our work through the nationwide Hunger Is Campaign.

Hunger Is, a joint charitable program of the Albertsons Companies Foundation, also known as the Safeway Foundation, and the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) designed to build awareness and raise funds to eradicate childhood hunger in America.

Look out for the Hunger Is giving opportunity in your stores this month!

Thank YOU for believing in our mission of ending childhood hunger in our state!