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Missouri State Fair brings attention to hungry children

Missouri’s Director of Agriculture says the Drive to Feed Kids, spotlighted at the Missouri State Fair, is on-going.

Chris Chinn told an audience at the Missouri State Fair opening ceremony Thursday that the Drive to Feed Kids, tied into the Missouri Department of Agriculture’s Feed MORE initiative, will not end when the State Fair closes.

“We want this to be a yearlong program that each farmer and rancher thinks about every day when they get up, put their hat and go to work,” said Chinn.

Sawyer Brown lead singer Mark Miller, a supporter of the Drive to Feed Kids, tells Brownfield he’s particularly struck by the fact that one in five Missouri children come from food insecure families.  In rural areas that figure climbs to one in three.  Miller acknowledges being in a position to bring attention to the cause.

“Someone has to be in their corner, and someone has to have a voice, and that’s all of us,” Miller told Brownfield Ag News Thursday.  “That’s what I want to do is just use my voice because they can’t.”

Miller wrote and produced the film “Where the Fast Lane Ends”, which was screened at the State Fair on Thursday and portrays the responsible use of science and technology in agriculture.

The primary sponsor of the Drive to Feed Kids is the organization Missouri Farmers Care.  Its chairman, Dr. Alan Wessler, underlines the drive’s importance.

“Children are the ones who can’t do anything about their situation,” Wessler told Brownfield, “but they’re the ones our future rests on.”

AUDIO: Chris Chinn (5 min. MP3)

AUDIO: Mark Miller (2 min. MP3)

AUDIO: Dr. Alan Wessler (6 min. MP3)