No Child in Kentucky Should Go Hungry
At No Kid Hungry, we are committed to ensuring that every kid has 3 healthy meals a day, 365 days a year.
The Problem
We know hunger is a solvable problem, but every day it impacts children’s ability to learn and grow. Approximately 15% of children in Kentucky live in food-insecure homes. That phrase may sound mild, but it means that those households don’t have enough food for every family member to lead a healthy life.
We have plenty of food in the United States and federal nutrition programs that work together to provide access to meals and groceries for those facing economic hardship; the problem is that not enough kids and families are able to access them. There are large gaps in the number of kids and families that qualify for benefits and those that are receiving them.
How We Can Help
In collaboration with our partners, No Kid Hungry works to ensure all children have access to the federal nutrition programs in their communities.
Supporting Schools
We work with school districts, providing training, toolkits, and strategic grant funding to launch or enhance existing school meal programs – breakfast, lunch, afterschool, and summer meals.
Building Community Partnerships
We collaborate with community based organizations and support innovative strategies to support afterschool and summer meal programs and connect families to other critical federal nutrition programs like SNAP and WIC.
Advancing Equity
Childhood hunger is the product of longtime systemic inequities. We prioritize support to marginalized communities, seek out and share successful community based solutions, and work to address the root causes of hunger.
Advocating for Kids
We engage with elected and government officials to make sure that ending child hunger is prioritized by decision makers at all levels of government.
Our Team
John Cain, Kentucky Kids Eat Program Director
John Cain manages the No Kid Hungry Kentucky campaign at Feeding Kentucky.
As Feeding Kentucky’s childhood hunger relief program, the Kentucky Kids Eat program focuses on ensuring every kid in Kentucky has access to nutritious food 365 days a year. John brings to Feeding Kentucky a passion for improving health equity for all. Over his two-decade career in health sciences, he has practiced clinically as an endocrine PA, monitored communities for infectious diseases as an epidemiologist, coordinated research related to chronic disease risk factors, and mobilized a network of volunteers as a volunteer himself in making schools healthier places to learn. Through his volunteer efforts with Action for Healthy Kids, John was named a National Healthy School Hero in 2010. A native of Appalachia KY who still calls Buckhorn home, John received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Centre College. He completed graduate education in public health with a concentration in epidemiology from the University of Kentucky College of Public Health followed by earning a Master of Science degree in physician assistant studies from the UK’s College of Health Sciences.
You can reach John by email at john@feedingky.org.
About Share Our Strength
No Kid Hungry is a national campaign run by Share Our Strength, a nonprofit working to solve problems of hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world. After 25 years of successfully investing in local nonprofits and helping find the best approaches to eradicating poverty and hunger, Share Our Strength launched No Kid Hungry in 2010.
As a child hunger organization, ending childhood hunger is our primary focus, though Share Our Strength continues to invest in and develop other campaigns.
Learn more about Share Our Strength and our other work at ShareOurStrength.org.