DeCANstructing Hunger
During the school year about 30.3 million children receive free or reduced price lunches at their public schools. But, in the summer, this number drops to 2.6 million. That means fewer than 10% of students who receive free meals during the school year continue to get them during summer break. While the summer months can offer a fun break, the downside is the break negatively impacts what is called “Food Insecurity.” According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), Food Insecurity is the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable food.
Food Insecurity exists in every County, Parish, and Congressional District in the United States. Nationally 1 in 8 (12.3 percent) of households are food insecure. And, there is an emerging trend of Food Insecurity in households headed by grandparents. This is why Humana employees embarked on a challenge. Employees throughout the United States and Puerto Rico were given a directive to create teams and build can structures to collect and donate to area food banks. The challenge was coined the “DeCANstructing Hunger Challenge.”
On a local level, the team of employees based in Georgia, took a patriotic approach to the build in honor of our nation’s Independence Day. They made a carefully constructed and innovative American flag, using 2 types of canned goods, tuna and soup. Donna Smith, Humana’s Manager of Sales Administration for the Outstate GA territory, orchestrated the challenge to make the canned goods flag. “We collected 284 cans totaling 157 pounds. It was not an easy task to assemble, but the households that it will benefit made it worth the effort.” If you look closely at it, the flag appears to wave.
DeCANstructing Hunger is one of the directives Humana began as part of their Bold Goal. “Our Bold Goal is a population health strategy to help the communities we serve be 20 percent healthier by 2020.” explains Terri Hill, Sales and Marketing Support Executive for Humana in Georgia. Another initiative of this goal, Hill says, is to provide NO COST community based educational events that a myriad of topics like “5 Sneaky Causes of Weight Gain” and “Battling the Aging Brain.”