Back to School Resources: The A, B, Cs of Fighting Hunger with Your Students This Year
As the school year begins, educators, parents, and students are wrestling with urgent questions about justice and care. With growing threats to basic needs programs and ongoing debates over hunger and social services in America, it’s a critical moment to help students understand the systems shaping our world. We want to walk you through a few easy-to-implement programs to bring this learning into your classroom, synagogue, or youth group. You’ll find opportunities for students of all ages from K-12, college, and adult education.
A: Advocacy and Apples!
At MAZON, we always start with advocacy. 47 million Americans are experiencing hunger, and together we can demand change. We would love for your students to join our “No One Deserves to Go Hungry” postcard campaign.
Each postcard will represent 1,000 people experiencing hunger. Our goal is to deliver 47,000 postcards to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) with a simple message: No one deserves to go hungry. No exceptions.
From Rosh Hashanah to Sukkot, it’s apple season. The High Holy Days are an excellent way to drop a little education and advocacy about hunger into your school year.
You can find all of our holiday resources here, but you can kick off your year with this beautiful Sukkot activity/art piece. We invite you to ask: How will you nourish your community? We offer you a poster featuring a tree of life, entwined with quotes from our tradition, rooting us in the imperative to fight hunger. Your students can respond to prompts about hunger, and write their answers on the accompanying fruit cutouts. Hang the poster and your students’ work in your community sukkah,lobby, or hallway for all to see and participate!
B: B’nai Mitzvah Projects and Books
B’nai mitzvah projects have evolved into an incredible opportunity for students to bring their own agency and vision into their justice learning and Jewish journey. We would be honored to be part of it. You can offer your child or student our one-pager to start their brainstorm, but we’d love to be their partner in developing ways to bring this education to their peers, family, and community.
For your book clubs, sisterhoods/brotherhoods, Melton groups, and other adult education programs, we would love to share our bookshelf. We would be delighted to have a MAZON staff person come join your bookclub to lead a discussion and place these books in the context of the political landscape and Jewish values.
C: Challah and Curriculum
Though Challah for Hunger began as a college-based program, we are here to support it rising to include communities of all types and ages.
Whether on campus or at a synagogue, Challah for Hunger brings people together around the Jewish tradition of baking challah, and the proceeds of the challah sales or participation fees support MAZON’s fight to end hunger. We are developing leaders committed to social justice, engaging them in understanding the realities and complexities of hunger in America, and guiding them to realize and actualize long-term solutions to end hunger. We’d love to talk to you about a one-off bake or a regularly-meeting chapter.
We have a world of curricular resources, but we are especially excited to reintroduce MAZON’s Hunger Museum Youth Curriculum. This is a free, seven-lesson resource designed for middle and high school learners in classrooms, youth groups, synagogues, and communal spaces. Through hands-on activities and a virtual visit to MAZON’s Hunger Museum, students explore the history and systems behind hunger in America.
The curriculum includes text study, reflection prompts, and critical context on how policies, economic forces, social movements, and discrimination have shaped who has access to food in this country and what it means to pursue justice today.
You can learn more about the Hunger Museum Youth Curriculum here, and explore the virtual Hunger Museum and take a self-guided tour anytime at hungermuseum.org. Looking beyond the K-12 set? Talk to us about a docent-led tour!
For more information or questions, please contact Tammy Habteyes at thabteyes@mazon.org.