Kids Food Basket

Social Problems & Community Leadership A social problem is something in a community that serves as a problem and promotes injustice. These problems are often being ignored, leading them to become unjust. Childhood hunger is a very common social problem throughout the United States. Kids Food Basket, located in West Michigan, is just one of many nonprofit organizations that serves to put an end to childhood hunger. This organization all began back in 2001, when a Grand Rapids Public School’s principal witnessed her students looking for food in the trash. Mary K. Hoodhood heard the story and founded Kids Food Basket to make a change. Kids Food Basket addresses childhood hunger by serving kids directly, creating an engine for volunteering, and empowering kids to help each other. By serving kids directly, Kids Food Basket is able to effectively address this social problem. The first step in working with a social problem, is to define the problem. That is exactly what Kids Food Basket did, and they knew something had to be done. They could've just said “something has to be done,” but never address it. There are many social problems that are being ignored because people don’t want to put the work into making a change. In order to solve a social problem, you have to put in the work. Kids Food Basket knows their hard work is actually being
Kids Food Basket survives off of volunteers. Each day, nearly 250 volunteers help this nonprofit organization. There is always a task that needs to be done by a volunteer. In order to serve 7,500 children every school day, they need volunteers to make sandwiches, prepare fruits and veggies, bag trail mix, and pack sack suppers. From packing and delivering the sack suppers, to leading juice box, snack drives, and fund drives, there is countless opportunities for volunteer