A Ray of Hope for Kids in Results of Election?

It would impossible to overstate how pre-occupied all of Washington will be with the election results. The House will almost certainly be majority Republican and the conventional wisdom will be that there is much about which the country is divided. But one area where elected officials may find common ground is ensuring a healthy start for our kids.

The new political make-up of Congress and huge deficits will make it very difficult to start new programs, But Share Our Strength’s strategy for ending childhood hunger doesn’t depend on proposing new programs. Instead it depends on more effective use of existing programs like school breakfast and summer feeding.

Congress and the President will be forced to work together and fashion bi-partisan solutions. On childhood hunger there is a long track record of doing just that: working together to expand school lunch, school breakfast, summer feeding, and SNAP (food stamps).

There are many issues for which we may not yet have or agree upon solutions: job creation, climate change, threat of terrorism. But childhood hunger is not one of those. We know it is solvable and what works to solve it. This may be a chance to surprise the nation and get some big things done for our children.