Rob:  It’s that time of year again, that school children have been waiting so for, summer vacation.  Sadly though, some will suffer through it.  It’s hard to think about here in the heartland, but every day thousands of children in Oklahoma will not get enough to eat.  Our Keith Smith has more on how hunger is all too real in Oklahoma, and more importantly what’s being to remedy the situation.
Keith:  That’s right Rob.  I’m told by the Regional Food Bank that one-in-five children in Oklahoma may be on the brink of going to bed hungry each night.  It’s a cold hard fact no matter how you look at it, far too many fellow Oklahomans have gone without enough to eat.  The final bell’s just the beginning when the toughest test you’ll ever take comes when school’s out for the summer.   Around five hundred thousand people are at risk of going hungry in Oklahoma each day, twenty percent of all children in the state.  Over the last three decades the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma has distributed close to three hundred million pounds of food to feed the hungry, enough to provide meals for more than sixty thousand people a week and there are still those who will not get enough.
First Lady Kim Henry:  I think a lot of us, you know, go about our daily lives, and we’re not aware that so many people truly do not have any food at all.
Keith:  Oklahoma’s First Lady Kim Henry, proud of a new partnership. The goal, to raise tens of thousands of dollars for at-risk children across the state by selling Made in Oklahoma paper towels.
First Lady Kim Henry:  They’re going to bed literally hungry at night and to be able to get out that message and to let people know that we’re trying to do something about it. 
Keith:  Funding will go to the Foods 4 Kids backpack program which gives food to children on weekends and over holidays when school meal programs are not available.
Richard Wasson:  And the operative word is chronically, meaning they would not have food if it wasn’t for the backpack for kids program.
Keith:  It’s the idea of Made in Oklahoma’s executive director, Richard Wasson.
Wasson:  The retail community came to us and said, you know there’s, people are hungry in November, December and January, not just in October.  So from that, that kind of spawned the thought of, how can we develop an ongoing 365-day program to help feed Oklahomans that are hungry?
Keith:  More than seven thousand children already take part in the backpack program.
Wasson:  The coalition took that on as our challenge to help fulfill that need.  Right now between the two food banks here in Oklahoma, they supply ten thousand backpacks a week.  In the next three years, they project, that, that number will more than double.
Keith:  Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma executive director, Rodney Bivens.
Rodney Bivens:  We’re continuing trying to expand the program, when 38 counties we currently serve out of 53, we want to expand the program to all 53.  This really gives us a potential funding base to do that expansion.
Wasson:  You know they have volunteers that come in every week to pack up these backpacks.  They’re doing about fifty thousand a month.
Keith:  Feeding hope, changing lives.
First Lady Kim Henry:  It’s incredibly rewarding to see all the effort that goes into the Regional Food Bank here in Oklahoma City, and the one in Tulsa, and across the state to really combat hunger.
Bivens:  We can choose to educate our children today, or incarcerate tomorrow.  And we need to remove one of those barriers, and especially if it’s hunger.
Keith:  Rob, you can pick up these paper towels at grocery stores across the state. 
Rob:  Now what about this summer when the students aren’t in school, and they don’t have access to the free and reduced meals that they would get normally in school?
Keith:  Rob, there’s always a need.  And that’s why they’re continuing to raise money for this backpack program.  But they already have a summer meal program in place.   Kids can go to places like a local church or the YMCA to pick up a local summer meal.
Rob:  Well a great program, and nice story.  Thank you Keith.