We believe that feeding the hungry when you have the resources to do so is the most obvious of all human obligations, and especially children. Hunger is the number one health risk. It kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Good nutrition in the first several years of a child's life is critical and is especially important to establish a good foundation for a child's mental, physical, academic advancement and economic outlook. Children face the greatest challenges due to hunger and are therefore at the highest risk of facing extreme short-term and long-term consequences. Hunger will weaken the immune system and increases the risk of infection and disease. These effects have a much greater impact on a child and a hungry child can begin to suffer from chronic hunger, moderate malnutrition, sever malnutrition and severe malnutrition. These children that develop malnutrition can cause diseases that become deadly. 

•  Every 6 seconds a child dies because of hunger and related causes. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2004)

• 16.1 million children in America live in poverty. 

• 200 million children go to bed hungry.

• More than 9 million children under age 5 die every year.  Malnutrition accounts for more than one-third of these deaths.

• More than 6 million children die of malnutrition each year.

• Nearly 15 percent of babies in developing countries are born with a low birth weight compared with only 7 percent of babies in industrialized countries.

• About 5.6 million deaths of children worldwide are related to under-nutrition. This accounts for 53 percent of the total deaths for children under 5.