Rural Child Hunger Summit 2021: Collaborative Planning and Community Engagement Strategies to Address Rural Child Hunger

While rural families can struggle from a range of resource and infrastructure challenges, they also have a unique strength – strong community ties. Combatting rural hunger requires trust and a whole community approach to develop holistic solutions that suit individual community needs. Join this session to hear how community organizers in South Carolina, southern Appalachia, and California’s Central Valley are working alongside community members to leverage community assets and build public will to end hunger.

Did you know? At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Save the Children Trustee Jennifer Garner and fellow actor Amy Adams partnered with Save the Children and No Kid Hungry to create #SAVEWITHSTORIES. Through this initiative, they offered stories on Instagram and Facebook to provide a little fun, a little education, and a little distraction for kids and parents during a difficult time.

Speakers:

Mia Medina, Program Manager, No Kid Hungry Texas

Mia Medina is the Program Manager for No Kid Hungry Texas, where she focuses on statewide outreach, grants, and manages the Texas School District Cohort. Prior to working at No Kid Hungry, Mia worked in the Medicaid Division of Texas Health and Human Services Commission where she collaborated with the Policy Council for Children and Families to come up with policy changes that could better the lives of families who have children with disabilities. She also has experience working with schools through her work at Partnership for 21st Century Learning, a nonprofit that focused on highlighting best practices in whole child learning. Mia is originally from Big Spring, Texas and is a graduate of American University where she received her Master of Public Administration and Policy. She is also an alumna of Texas Tech University where she received her Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies.

Michelle Troup, Director of Culinary Medicine, FoodShare South Carolina

Michelle works to blend the worlds of academia, medicine, culinary arts, and community empowerment to make a more sustainable, accessible food system.

Evette Tovar-Lugo, Program Manager, No Kid Hungry California

Born and raised in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, Evette Tovar-Lugo is one of our very own Program Managers on our No Kid Hungry California team. After graduating from UC Santa Barbara, she returned to her agricultural roots and saw first-hand the food disparity in the San Joaquin Valley; the irony of producing food for the world while its residents are experiencing food insecurity at disproportionally higher than average rates is perplexing. She became involved with several elected officials and anti-poverty organizations such as the Central California Food Bank and Department of Social Services, among others, to combat the larger food insecurity systems at play. Evette is now committed to building a hunger coalition in Fresno County to marry both its urban and rural spaces in an accessible and equitable manner.

Kathy Holt, Senior Specialist, Collective Impact, Save the Children

Kathy Holt has lived and worked in rural East Tennessee for over forty years. She has thirty-four years of experience in education, serving both as a classroom teacher and a district level supervisor. Over the years, Kathy has gained experience and knowledge of the factors that impact rural families and affect children’s success in education, as well as formed extensive collaborative partnerships with local community leaders. Currently serving as Senior Specialist of Collective Impact for Save the Children, Kathy supports the development, facilitation, implementation, monitoring, and management of results-based, collective impact initiatives for Cocke County, TN. Knowing that food insecurity is a critical factor impacting progress toward cradle-to-career outcomes for children in Cocke County, Kathy seeks to identify proactive, collaborative, engaging community stakeholders to address this need in Cocke County, TN.