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KidsCampaigns News Room

• Hunger in America
  Twelve million American households report limited or uncertain access to food, with 4 million reporting moderate or severe hunger, according to Household Food Security in the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's first official comprehensive assessment of hunger in America.

  Another USDA study has found that the nation wastes more than 96 billion pounds of food each year. If one-third more of this unused food were to be rescued and distributed to Americans in need, there would be enough to feed 450,000 people a day for a year. For a Citizen's Guide to Food Recovery and other information, call 1-800-GLEANIT.

  For information about food—food production, recovery, safety, and family nutrition—check out the USDA website.

• NetDay
  Whether you are computer literate or not, you can help with NetDay, a grass-roots volunteer effort to wire schools so they can network their computers and connect them to the Internet. This year Netday is scheduled for October 25, 1997. Find out about NetDay activities across the country and in your area.

  For a report on how schools and teachers can make the most of educational opportunities in the information age, and pitfalls to watch for, check out "The Learning Connection" published by the Benton Foundation.

• Back to School
  Don't go back to school without visiting KidsCampaigns new Families and Learning section. As kids go back to school, parents, guardians, and family members shouldn't drop out of their role as their children's first and most important educators. KidsCampaigns explores how families and communities are working to educate our children at home, in the community, and as partners with the schools. Plus, find out how our partners, ParentSoup and Youth Service America, can help.

• Improving Child Support Collections
  While public officials aim to reduce the number of families on welfare, more than $34 billion in child support payments are still uncollected each year. A 1997 briefing kit on child support collections, including information about the 50 state child support collection systems and a look at how we could improve the nation's 19 percent child support collection rate is now available.This kit was developed by the Child Support Reform Initiative. For an overview on child support enforcement, click here.

• Welfare Reform and America's Children
  States and communities are beginning to implement changes legislated in the 1996 welfare reform act. For continually updated information on the law and its implementation, as well as sources for data, policy statements, and news, keep current via KidsCampaigns' Welfare Reform and America's Children.

• America's Children: 25 National Indicators of Well-Being
  The federal government has released its first annual report on the condition of the nation's children. "America's Children: 25 National Indicators of Well-Being" pulls together composite information from multiple agencies and departments, akin to the federal government's composite reports on key economic indicators. Key findings from this first report include good news—the percentage of children in poverty and of children reporting they do not have enough to eat has declined slightly in the 1990s, the percentage of mothers receiving prenatal care and toddlers receiving immunizations has increased in the 1990s, and high school completion rates for black youth have increased substantially since 1980—and bad news—cigarette smoking, substance abuse, and violent criminal victimization rates for teenagers have increased since 1990.