No Child Goes Hungry

Rev. Kären Rasmussen is a Unitarian Universalist minister and the founder and director of No Child Goes Hungry, Inc.

She has been a chief architect of successful projects like Complete the Circle, a volunteer service project to raise awareness and take a stand against hunger and need in Fairfax County, and the Weekend of Service project at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax where over 800 hours of service are logged in one weekend each year. Kären also sits on the Board of Directors for Britepaths in Fairfax, VA.

While working with other hunger-relief and poverty support organizations, Kären became aware of just how problematic hunger is, particularly for children. Because of this, she envisioned a world where no child would be hungry when they went to bed at night.

NCGH is committed to filling the gaps for food-insecure families across the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic by partnering with local non-profits to launch innovative programs that ensure that families are getting enough nutritious food and that no child goes to bed hungry. Many of the applications represent new partnerships with innovative, passionate, and persistent community leaders looking to make a difference in society and fill the hunger gap caused by COVID-19.

While these partnerships are creating an impact in communities in need and helping us make a social difference, we aren’t nearly ready to stop. With more requests received every week, we need more funds to share with non-profit organizations across the nation that are ready to roll up their sleeves and ideate and execute grassroots solutions to the exacerbated issue of hunger caused by COVID-19.

As of May 20, 2020, 36.5 million Americans have lost their jobs due to COVID-19. Nearly 35 million children reliant on school-based nutrition and financial assistance lost access to services when COVID-19 forced states to shut school doors. Millions of American families are struggling to put food on their tables. During the pandemic, NCGH has funded several grant requests to local organizations, totaling $11,300, which include such initiatives as providing food and funding for:

• Little Free Pantries in Washington, DC., Manassas, VA, Rockville, MD, Columbus Ohio, Hortons County Kentucky, Goshen NY and Tylertown, MS

• The startup of a new community garden with The Good News Community Kitchen in Occoquan, VA

• Food for Neighbors in Reston, VA, to help it supplement breakfasts and lunches to school children

• So What Else to help provide bags of food for kids in the inner city of Baltimore, MD

• The Children’s Learning Center in Jackson, WY, which is using a van to deliver food for kids in need

• My Why in Cincinnati, OH, to help purchase a van to drive donated fruit and vegetables to inner-city families

More funds are needed to continue funding grassroots initiatives to solve the issue of hunger locally.

NCGH provides grant money as well as mentorship opportunities so that community organizations can build hunger advocacy programs that will thrive and grow as their communities continue to tackle the problem of local food insecurity. Currently, No Child Goes Hungry sponsors grants and works with community organizations in seventeen states, the District of Columbia, and Honduras. As NCGH grows, we aim to provide even more schools with pantries, help inner-city after school programs, support food repurposing organizations with transportation, and mentor other bands of committed people to feed kids locally. We plan to go deeper and wider! It’s all about the connection between the NCGH funds and mentorship with people who desire to help with the needs right there near them. As demonstrated by the over 75 grants already out there working, I am a connector, a changemaker, and a collaborator. It’s about seeing the need, meeting the demand, and providing sustainability for a just world.  It’s “how can I help you, and then let’s do this together.”

The options for making sure No Child Goes Hungry in our community are only limited by our imaginations!

No Child Goes Hungry (NCGH) partners with local organizations across seventeen states, the District of Columbia, and Honduras to fund initiatives to address the issue of childhood hunger. We publish the stories of our partnerships on our website. Here is one such example:

Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church (AUUC) received the 2019 Congregational Social Justice Program Award from Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice for its efforts to stop hunger in Fairfax County, VA. Using seed money that NCGH granted in 2016, AUUC has made a significant impact on its community.

Although Northern VA is one of the wealthiest areas in the country, in Fairfax County, 5% of the population experience food insecurity. This data means, based on U.S. Census figures, that more than 90,000 people are living in poverty in Fairfax County, 30 percent of which are children. To address the issue of hunger in the community, AUUC partnered with its neighboring Halley Elementary School to provide about 20 children with Weekend Meal Packs (WMP). To provide WMPs throughout the entire school year, AUUC implements assembly events several times during the year. The program has been successful due to the enthusiastic participation by the AUUC community—adults, children, and youth.

In America, about 50 million people who were food insecure and half of those are children. Most accounts say one in five children live in poverty in the US. Why do we allow people to go hungry? It has been proven that we globally have the money, power, scientific knowledge and resources to feed our population. So why don’t we? NCGH exists to raise awareness of the issue of childhood hunger locally, nationally, and globally and to enable local difference-makers to help ensure no child goes to bed hungry by focusing on one child, one meal at a time.

No Child Goes Hungry (NCGH) was founded with one dream, one passion in mind- that childhood hunger could be eliminated one kid and one meal at a time. I’m a twenty-year Navy veteran whose career spanned learning leadership skills and building teams, but mostly I learned how to see the needs of a community and help. I created  NCGH after serving as a hunger activist in my community and wondered why, why do we let kids go hungry, and what can I do to fix it? With this bare bone of an idea and some brainstorming with mentors,  I started with a plan.

My concept is simple. I do the fundraising and then provide schools, parent-teacher organizations, churches, food pantries, and any group who wants to help feed kids, the seed money to get started helping kids in their neighborhoods.

I remember my writing my first check to give to a group to work in DC with and how fulling it felt to be doing something concrete. I have since issued 76 grants across the country, totaling $69,400. I believe we can do this—we can eliminate childhood hunger.

It’s crazy , just crazy, that any child should ever go hungry. Whether we’re talking about the world, the United States, one city, or the kid that lives on your street. Hunger is a global issue and right next door.

I have been working on hunger and feeding people in my community of Fairfax County in Virginia for about eight years. Fairfax is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, and every single day more than 52,000 children, that’s 25% of kids who attend Fairfax County Public Schools, qualify to receive free or reduced-price meals. When those kids aren’t in school, who knows if they have any food to eat.

I find myself closing my eyes and ears and saying, “what can we do? What can I do?” When I feel overwhelmed by it all, I come back to the words in the Gospel of Matthew: “When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink.” 

For me, those two lines make the task simple again.  I believe that we can end childhood hunger, one kid, one meal at a time.

NCGH sponsors grants and works with community organizations in seventeen states, the District of Columbia, and Honduras including California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Vermont.

Since its inception, NCGH has built an extensive network of partners that are committed to the cause of ending childhood hunger. NCGH has the necessary application review, assessment, approval, and funding disbursement mechanisms in place to rapidly fun grassroots organizations that will immediately connect those in need with healthy, locally sourced food and resources.

NCGH provides grant money as well as mentorship opportunities so that community organizations can build hunger advocacy programs that will thrive and grow as their communities continue to tackle the problem of local food insecurity. Since 2016, NCGH has donated over $59,000 to organizations helping those forced to choose between heating their home or feeding their family. NCGH helps to fund a wide range of hunger elimination efforts, including after school meal or backpack programs, free little pantry projects, and relief food pantry projects.

To assess its impact, NCGH builds lasting relationships with grant applicants and follows up with them throughout the year to document their program progress and its effects. Many successful initiatives have become repeated receivers of funds from NCGH. While our focus is local, the impact of our work is measured by bellies that don’t grumble with hunger at night.

When I got started, people loved the concept of my creating partnerships with communities to feed kids. Still, I was getting nowhere asking organizations and churches for funds to get launched. I was struggling to have people commit to funds, and I just kept coming up empty. They were all working hard raising funds for themselves, and it exhausted them to even think of adding something new, no matter how well-intentioned it was. I remember when it hit me while giving a presentation and looking at the tired faces of my colleagues. It hit me that I should do the fundraising for NCGH myself and then offer them the grants as we partner together. I thought, “I need to change this dynamic and make it easy for them to work with me.” It was a game-changer for me to do that and still is. This method represents a genuinely different way to look at it and a very different business model, but it launched NCGH. I give the grants, brainstorm ideas, and mentor organization leaders on how to feed kids locally if needed, and then off we go. We have dispersed over seventy grants in three and a half years.

I’m a twenty-year Navy veteran and ordained minister who has started her own nonprofit. Although I was serving on the board of directors of a nonprofit that provides emergency food locally, I didn’t have much experience identifying hunger needs and leading teams to engage with communities in a positive way to feed kids. My years in the military offered me many opportunities to create and lead teams, but would these skills transfer? I found that the skills of bringing people to the table, facilitating conversations, offering suggestions, helping to create an action plan, finding roles for everyone, and then guiding folks to complete their goals fit well. I can boil all the years of leadership I’ve had into seven words: Create a space for others to excel. That’s it really, create a space for others to excel works with teams to feed kids too.

With the example above with the Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church, that’s what happened. NCGH provided them with a grant. We met, brainstormed, organized, problem solved, and figured out a way forward. They are so proud and happy with the meaningful work they are doing! All I did was create a space for them to excel.

What makes NCGH innovative is its model of fundraising on behalf of local nonprofit organizations that share our passion for hunger relief, and dispersing 100 percent of donated funds directly to the organizations that need it most. By alleviating the burden of fundraising for nonprofits, they can focus on what they do best—helping to end childhood hunger. We have also found that while national organizations do incredible work in the battle against childhood hunger, there is a dire need for funding to be infused directly into communities. There is a need to give funds to local organizations that can convert dollars into dinners and put them into the hands of those in need. That is where NCGH is committed to helping.

What also creates a new dimension is that NCGH is a small,  nimble nonprofit located in Northern Virginia, but can honestly, we can help about any community, anywhere in the world, to fight hunger in their neighborhoods or villages.  Our grants vary in size and are applied to a variety of projects based on what the recipient sees as the need or their vision. Every grant has a story. Whether the funds are for a school pantry, a new community garden, to help provide food trucks for inner-city programs, or building Little Free Pantries, ways to feed kids are only limited by our imaginations.

How would you use a grant to help kids in your community? NCGH would be there to help.

What makes NCGH innovative is its model of fundraising on behalf of local nonprofit organizations that share our passion for hunger relief, and dispersing 100 percent of donated funds directly to the organizations that need it most. By alleviating the burden of fundraising for nonprofits, they can focus on what they do best—helping to end childhood hunger. We have also found that while national organizations do incredible work in the battle against childhood hunger, there is a dire need for funding to be infused directly into communities. There is a need to give funds to local organizations that can convert dollars into dinners and put them into the hands of those in need. That is where NCGH is committed to helping.

What also creates a new dimension is that NCGH is a small,  nimble nonprofit located in Northern Virginia, but can honestly, we can help about any community, anywhere in the world, to fight hunger in their neighborhoods or villages.  Our grants vary in size and are applied to a variety of projects based on what the recipient sees as the need or their vision. Every grant has a story. Whether the funds are for a school pantry, a new community garden, to help provide food trucks for inner-city programs, or building Little Free Pantries, ways to feed kids are only limited by our imaginations.

How would you use a grant to help kids in your community? NCGH would be there to help.

I remember the first time we shopped, bagged, and delivered food to an elementary school in Columbia, MD.  It was easy to count the number of bags and the cost. As we grew and provided cash funds to organizations, it became challenging to quantify meals based on each organization’s unique operations.

As I write this, requests for support increase daily, and Little Free Pantry requests have tripled just in the last week as neighbors work to help neighbors while social distancing.

NCGH keeps careful records of each grant given and has 100% accountability with each of the organizations awarded funds. Since it’s challenging to quantify food distribution by group, NCGH uses the metrics of how many grants are given, in which states, and how the funds are used to determine partnership success.

With my background in financial management, while serving in the Navy, working as department lead for a defense contractor, and managing a pet therapy business, I have decades of financial experience and keep careful spreadsheets and records each year for submission to the NCGH tax accountant.

Here are some meal estimates with our current level of funding. If awarded an Elevate Prize, our numbers will increase exponentially.

Current Impact: 17,961

Estimated Impact in one years: 35,922

Estimated Impact in five years:  179,610    

Based on these figures, we estimate that in total, from 2020 to 2025, these interactions will amount to over 500,000 distributed meals.

Having professional experience and training in strategic planning, goal-setting, and tracking metrics, I develop and maintain a rolling three-year NCGH strategic plan.

2021 Goals:

• Research, write and submit applications for five new grants from various sources. Reach for the sky in the amounts.
• Seek out a minimum of twelve new organizations to partner with and supply with seed money bringing the total of new grants to 125.
• Implement a “196 Degrees” school lunch funding program and personally reach out to all eighty schools as potential partner organizations in Fairfax County, Virginia.
• Continue to increase marketing campaign efforts through Facebook and Instagram to increase followers by 25%.
• Create five new “ambassadors” for NCGH whose responsibility is to introduce NCGH to new organizations to serve and arrange for speaking opportunities.

2025 Goals:

• Based on the organization’s average increase in annual donations year-over-year since 2016 of 27%, our goal is to donate over $75,000 to partner organizations.
• Bring the total number of grants awarded to 500.
• Create a more extensive marketing awareness by asking organizations that have received a grant to connect NCGH with their local media, resulting in coverage in ten local media stories.
• Keep diversifying what organizations receive NCGH by contacting more interfaith organizations, county school systems, and grassroots organizations serving their communities.

NCGH faces two significant barriers. The first is getting people to understand our simple but effective business model. I do the fundraising and provide schools, parent-teacher organizations, churches, food pantries, and any group who wants to help feed kids, the seed money to help kids in their neighborhoods. I mentor and coach recipients on how to find and partner with those in need in their community, and I even offer free lesson plans for fostering dialogue with kids and adults about food insecurity.

Still, people ask me, “does this work?”  Four years later, I have a carefully documented history of how all over seventy of my grants are working. 

The second most significant barrier is the amount of funding.

Although we’ve made progress and have a small but mighty donor pool, the need for deeper funding is a barrier to our total impact.

Contributors donate to NCGH in several ways: Through presentations and collections at congregations, small endowment grants given through congregations, directly through our website, social media awareness, the Faithify crowdfunding platform, corporate matching programs, and a small cadre of generous donors. 

An Elevate Prize would be a game-changer for NCGH.  There would be a vast expansion of school programs and inner-city after school programs served, more community gardens funded, and well, more of everything we do!  We have the imagination, the accountability, the energy, and the council of advisors to help us; we just need more funds.

We already see a shift in people understanding that my unique business model is developing a track record of success.  When giving a presentation, I usually pick one or two success stories that are most relevant to the group and talk about them. It makes eliminating hunger locally seem more tangible and obtainable. If I were speaking with you, I’d ask you about the schools closest to where you live, and we’d talk about how you and I might partner with them to help. I haven’t encountered a school yet that the teachers and PTAs didn’t have some discreet weekend feeding program. I’ve given grants to schools right in my neighborhood that have weekend programs. I wish I had more to give every one of the groups I’ve given grants to so far.

NCGH plans to overcome these barriers by applying for grants just like this Elevate Prize. Since our business model is so unique, we don’t qualify for many of the federal, state, or local grants. It’s opportunities like this that make me hopeful that I’ll find the funding to do more, to give more, to mentor more, so that together, we can make sure no child—no child ever—goes hungry again. 

We partner with every organization to which we donate, offering long-term mentorship, support, and promotion. Some of our partner organizations include:

·       Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church, VA

·       Bowie Interfaith Pantry, MD

·       Britepaths, VA

·       The Children’s Learning Center, WY

·       Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation of White Plains, NY

·       Dulles South Food Pantry, VA

·       Episcopal Center for Children, DC

·       The Good News Community Kitchen, VA

·       Fairfax High School, VA

·       First Parish of Milton, MA

·       First Universalist Church of Minnesota, MN

·       Food4Thought, VA

·       Food for Neighbors, VA

·       Friends of Guest House, VA

·       Frost Middle School, VA

·       Heartland Food Pantry, OH

·       Kagler Solutions, MS

·       Luther’s Lunchbox, WI

·       Meadville Lombard Seminary, IL

·       My Why, OH

·       North Universalist Chapel, VT

·       Oakland Mills High School, MD

·       Olde Creek Elementary School, VA

·       One Earth Conservation, Honduras

·       So What Else, Inc., MD

·       Soul Fire Farms Institute, NY

·       South East Elementary School, DC

·       Sterling Unitarian Universalist Church, VA

·       Syracuse City School District, NY

·       Tacoma Police Department, MD

·       Throop Unitarian Universalist Pasadena, CA

·       To Be Well Fed, DC

·       Trinity United Methodist Church, FL

·       Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, NJ

·       Unitarian Universalist, PA

·       Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington, IN

·       Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Sarasota, FL

·       Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Wilmington, NC

·       Unitarian Universalist Society of Winchester, MA

·       Washington Ethical Society, DC

My concept is simple. I do the fundraising and then provide schools, parent-teacher organizations, churches, food pantries, and any group who wants to help feed kids, the seed money to get started helping kids in their neighborhoods.

NCGH maintains funding thanks to the generosity of recurring and one-time donors. In addition, we continually seek grant opportunities from national, regional, and local organizations, such as the Elevate Prize. In addition, we are hosting a Faithify crowdfunding campaign for our Social Differencing initiative:

https://faithify.org/projects/social-differencing-no-child-goes-hungry-making-a-difference-during-covid-19/

Below please find a breakdown of NCGH’s funding sources:

From 9 June 2019 to 9 June 2020 No Child Goes Hungry raised $32,006.83

Individual donors: 62.45%

Through:

• Writing personal checks
• Website
• Matching grants through their company or retirement funds:
• Fidelity
• Bank of America
• Schwab
• Verisign Cares

Through various giving platforms to include:

• Network for the Good
• Your Cause
• Benevity
• Facebook birthday fundraisers

Funds raised through congregations’ special collections: 13.5%

Faithify Unitarian Universalist crowdfunding platform: 15%

Grants received:  9%

• From the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax Endowment Committee

Amazon Smile .05%

Through our Social Differencing fundraiser, we aim to raise $5,000 in cash donations by the end of 2020.

Please note that 100% of donated funds are used to support community initiatives. Operating expenses are donated by a separate funding source and are as follows:

Contract work for communications, social media, grant writing, and blog writing: $1,000

Printing of business cards, note cards, brochures and flyers: $500

We intend to use funds from the Elevate Prize to directly fund local hunger advocacy initiatives in food-insecure communities that have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

100 percent of funds awarded from the Elevate Prize will directly fund local hunger advocacy initiatives in food-insecure communities that have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. In addition, we hope that any exposure that might come as a result of NCGH being recognized as an Elevate Prize winner will help generate awareness for our organization so that we can identify and partner with additional local organizations in need of our grant funding and support.

Oh my gosh, I could talk about my dreams for hours! I wish I could give more to every grant recipient. My ability to partner with organizations is easy; having significantly more funds to help them is the barrier.

For example, I live in Fairfax County, in Northern VA, one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S. Yet over 23,00 children are food-insecure. Eighty-six of the 196 schools don’t have the funds or programs they need, and many more are underfunded.

I want to start a program called 196 degrees. It will involve identifying schools that want to develop a program or a pantry. I would extend my partnerships with more schools, small nonprofits, PTAs, and churches who want to help. I want to get us to 0 degrees, 0 schools needing funds, or a program. My estimation is this project alone will cost $86,000.

I would also partner with more organizations like The Good News Community Kitchen that, with some help from NCGH, found land and will start a community garden. The organization is providing meals to many, especially during the pandemic, and also offers packages of food and hygiene products to victims of domestic violence and their children. NCGH was able to quickly provide both funds and a considerable delivery of food and paper products.

Every grant I give has a story. There is never a shortage of organizations NCGH partners with, just the funds to grow, connect, and to serve each.