MoxVib

On a blustery Thursday in late October, 12-year-old Jason McPheel bends down to inspect a row of pepper plants in the community garden behind his school. It’s late in the season, but after a short search, he finds what he’s looking for.

Jason plucks a pepper from the vine and bites into it with an audible crunch. He grins.

“Delicious!”

Classes at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Arlington, Virginia, ended about an hour ago, and there are hardly any other kids left on school grounds. But Jason and his fellow gardeners have plenty of good reasons to hang behind. Jason is happily munching on one of them — fresh produce he grew himself.

Even more significant is what he and his friends don’t eat. Those vegetables (about 500 pounds each year) will be donated to the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC), which will distribute them to people in need around the county.

“When I first came out here and tried some of the vegetables, I thought, ‘These taste really good. I want to be a part of this.’ But when I found out that they were using the garden to help people who need food, that’s when it became really important to me,” Jason said.

A few feet away, Logan Rowland is surveying some peanut plants, which are almost ready for harvest. Like Jason, Logan first came to the garden for the food and the fun, but she has become passionate about the community service.

“I like feeling like I can make a difference for someone,” she said.

Hunger hits home

As a member of Thomas Jefferson’s Model United Nations team, Logan knew that hunger is a global problem — more than 800 million people worldwide don’t get enough to eat, according to the World Food Program. But she hadn’t known much about hunger in her own community until she started working in the garden.

In Arlington County, about 1 in 10 kids lives in a “food-insecure” household. This means that their families don’t have reliable access to nutritious food year-round.

That same statistic applies to kids in Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. In the District, that number is much higher: About three of every 10 kids are food-insecure.

There are lots of reasons that kids in our region might not get enough food, explained Kaitlin Yarnall, director of National Geographic’s ongoing project about food. Even though the United States has no famines like the ones Logan has studied with her Model U.N. team, healthful food might be too expensive for some families, and the stores that sell it might be hard to get to, Yarnall said.

This year has been especially tough, according to AFAC’s executive director, Charles Meng, because government programs that help people in need pay for groceries have less money to give. This means that more and more families are looking for help from organizations such as AFAC: The number of people coming to the center has increased 26 percent in the past year, Meng said.

What can be done?

Food insecurity is a big problem, but one with many solutions. Some of them are on display at the National Geographic Museum's new exhibit "Food: Our Global Kitchen." There, kids can learn about life choices that might help make a dent in global hunger, such as composting, gardening and choosing to eat foods that require fewer resources to produce.

And then there’s the kind of work that Jason, Logan and their classmates are doing in the Thomas Jefferson garden. Their community service won’t end world hunger, but it can help feed a few hungry people living in their county.

“When I think about the problem, I sometimes feel overwhelmed,” Jason said. “It’s hard to do by yourself. That’s why I love working with other people like me, who take the time out of their daily schedule to do this.”

“And the more people you have, the bigger the difference you’re going to make,” added Adalie Wilson, another Thomas Jefferson seventh-grader and regular gardener.

Fighting hunger, finding friends

About 25 miles north of the Thomas Jefferson garden, in Montgomery Village, Maryland, dozens of kids come together each month for the Youth Against Hunger project at the International Cultural Center. Even though the volunteers here are preparing meals for local shelters rather than gardening, the atmosphere at the ICC is similar: lots of busy kids talking, laughing and running around purposefully.

“It’s like Willy Wonka’s factory for community service,” jokes Eva Quittman, a 12-year-old from nearby Gaithersburg and a longtime volunteer for Youth Against Hunger.

They get work done at factory speeds, too. In about an hour, volunteers are able to make about 700 sandwiches, package more than 100 pounds of vegetables and fill 3,500 bags of cereal — 1,000 more than their goal. This food will help feed about 300 people at nine shelters around Montgomery County.

The volunteers for Youth Against Hunger are passionate about community service. But they also come to the event because it’s fun.

“I’ve made so many good friends here,” says Suha Farshoori, an eighth-grader at Rosa Parks Middle School in Olney, Maryland. “I like talking with people while we work, and I’m always surprised by how friendly and giving people are.”

She looks at Eva, one of the friends she made at Youth Against Hunger, and they both giggle. Then they put their plastic gloves back on and head into the kitchen. They still have dozens of sandwiches to sort — and some new friends to meet.

Get involved

Want to help fight hunger in your neighborhood or around the world? Here are five volunteer opportunities aimed at kids. (Always ask a parent before going online.)

Thomas Jefferson Community Garden: Help grow produce for local food pantries (all ages).

125 South Old Glebe Road, Arlington, Virginia.

Contact John Adair at tjms.garden@gmail.com or visit www.apsva.us/Page/17878.

Kids Against Hunger: Package nutritious meals for malnourished people worldwide (age 5 and older).

6841 Elm Street, McLean, Virginia.

Contact Romi Bhatia at kahdcmetro@gmail.com or visit www.kahdcmetro.org.

Martha's Table: Help with preparation for nightly hot meal distribution (age 9 and older).

2114 14th Street NW, Washington.

Contact volunteer@marthastable.org or visit www.marthastable.volunteerhub.com/events/index.

Power Pack Program at Food for Others: Fill backpacks with food for kids to bring home over the weekend (all ages).

2938 Prosperity Avenue, Fairfax, Virginia.

Contact Nikki Clifford at nclifford@foodforothers.org or visit www.foodforothers.org/documents/FoodDriveP3PlanningKit_004.pdf.

Youth Against Hunger: Prepare meals to be distributed at local shelters (all ages).

19650 Club House Road, Suite 205, Montgomery Village, Maryland.

Contact Samia Haque at samia@www.theicc.net or visit www.theicc.net/programs/social-action-programs/youth-against-hunger.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the contact at the Thomas Jefferson Community Garden. He is John Adair. The story has been updated.

Percentage of D.C. area kids who are ‘food insecure’

Source: Map the Meal Gap/Feeding America. Data 2012.THE WASHINGTON POST

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