Help End Childhood Hunger

I was reading a blog about Share Our Strength and my 13 year old Julia is hanging over my shoulder with curiosity. I asked her, "Did you know that there are more than 17 million children, nearly 1 in every 4, that struggle with hunger? When you are home having your daily bowl of ice cream there are other children that may not even have access to a meal of any sorts." She looks at me with disgust and bewilderment. We are fortunate to live in an affluent community, we live in someone's garage, but we are still in the community. My children don't see this part of the world. They hear about these things but when you don't see it everyday it doesn't seem as real. So being the caring person that she is, she asks, "What can we do to help? How can we get ice cream to these kids?"

How we can help is by joining the efforts in the Great American Dine Out from September 19th - 25th. Everybody likes to go out to eat and everyone has to eat. If you have a local favorite restaurant call then up and ask if they are participating. If they are not, ask why and then let them know you will be dining else where this week. You can find particitpating restaurants here . Restaurants are offering many great promotions, featuring special dishes, and donating part of the proceeds from the week to help support Share Our Strength . Other ways to support are:

1. If you have a blog use it to raise awareness for the "No Kid Hungry" campaign and "The Great American Dine Out"
2. If you are on line at all: Use your presence on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.... to spread the work about "The Great American Dine Out" and ask friends, family, and networks to please dine out that week.
3. Join on Twitter, September 20th from 9:00am-9:00pm, for the \"Tweet-a-Thon\" to raise awareness for the campaign. Use and follow the hashtags #DineOut and #NoKidHungry

So let's go out, have a great meal, support the industry we all love, and help get these kids some "ice cream"!!!! Because as Julia says, "Ice cream makes everyone happy!!!!"