American Morning
Oscar winner Jeff Bridges pledges to feed all U.S. kids
A pledge to end childhood hunger comes from Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges this morning.
The actor, who won the Oscar for Best Actor this year for his performance in Crazy Heart, launches the “No Kid Hungry" campaign today to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. Seventeen million children—nearly one in four—struggle with hunger in the United States.
American Morning’s Kiran Chetry talks to Bridges and Bill Shore, founder and director of Share Our Strength, the D.C.-based anti-hunger, anti-poverty non-profit partnering with the “No Kid Hungry” project.
Watch to find out how Bridges plans to achieve his goal by filling gaps in existing programs.
And, visit http://nokidhungry.org for more information.
About this Show
Welcome to the American Morning blog where you can get daily news updates from American Morning's reporters and producers. Join us for "the most news in the morning," weekdays from 6-9 a.m. ET, only on CNN.
On Twitter
If the last year has taught us anything it is that corporations are not benevolent. They are, at best, amoral, and more frequently pursue their profits as is written in their DNA, ruthlessly and without regard for the common good. Occasionally the people within the corporation will push for a cause or encourage it to give, but when the corporation does so, it is always a cynical attempt at image manipulation and brand enhancement. Until we force corporations to evolve beyond invasive species (weeds and parasites) to see themselves as part of an ecosystem, dependent on and thriving as a result of the success of their human counterparts, we will not move forward as a society.
I don't want to be at the negative side but I think the problem of hunger is very complex. You just can't go out and feed every kids in the streets and then problem solved. But maybe yes, you can solve the problem, but not its root cause which (I think) is IRRESPOSIBLE PARENTHOOD. People who had the (thick)skin to make babies but not ready to become parents. Or, so called parents that are too lazy to find a decent job to support their child(ren); parents that can't buy food but can buy alcohol and drugs; parents that don't have money to support their child(ren) needs but have plenty for gambling. Should they would waive their parental rights and authority over their children, feeding these kids would bear more sense.
Bill Shore mentions Share Our Strength's Cooking Matters, a national, cooking-based program that teaches low-income families how to make the best use of their food resources to prepare nutritious and affordable meals. Cooking Matters courses are led by expert culinary and nutrition volunteers who teach how to select tasty and low-cost ingredients, stretch them across multiple meals, and use healthy cooking techniques that help participants provide the best nourishment possible to their families. Learn more at CookingMatters.org.
An addendum to the corporate responsibility program is that we might have a simple thing such as Jean Friday. The last Friday of every month the employees pay $10 or $20 dollars apiece (or whatever they can afford) to wear jeans on that day. Each person recieves a reciept that can be used for taxes and the money is donated to feed children locally. It creates a comaraderie amoung co-workers and helps the children in the process. Everyone looks foward to the last Friday of the month. Once all these corporations combine their donations a tidy sum could be accumulated.
I wish we could start a grassroots movement for corporate responsibility. I work in a beautiful corporate park and if they pooled their resources to feed the surrounding communities alone; it could spread across the country and feed our children on a massive level. Ultimately, corporations around the world could take responsibility for their own children.