TAC Teens Tackle Hunger

Imagine living on $10 worth of food for two days. No Starbucks coffee, no snack between meals, just eating what you need to survive.

Members of the Teen Advisory Committee are doing just that. In an effort to truly understand hunger, teens in Marlboro are living on $5 per day, the average food budget of a struggling family.

Participating TAC members will purchase food on their budget, and eat nothing but that food for two days. 

The money teens would usually spend on food, both inside and outside school, will be spent on non-perishable food items and donated to the Foodbank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties or directly to struggling families in towns like Union Beach.

The idea, according to TAC leader and Deputy Mayor Larry Rosen, is to teach civic responsibility and social justice. Rosen said the hunger problem may escape most in Marlboro, but not far outside its borders are starving people.

The following information was supplied by TAC leaders:

• In 2010, 17.2 million American households, (1 in 7) were food insecure, the highest number everrecorded in the U.S.
• More than 16 million (almost 1 in 5) American children are at risk of hunger.
• In 2011, 5.1 percent of all U.S. households (6.1 million households) accessed emergency foodfrom a food pantry one or more times.
• About 96 billion pounds of food available for human consumption in the United States werethrown away by retailers, restaurants, farmers and households over the course of one year.