Today we're partnering with Feed The Children (feedthechildren.org) to provide a backpack filled with food, hygiene items, and age-appropriate school supplies for a homeless elementary or junior-high student right here in LA. Each backpack is just $20! Call 877-714-5437 to help, or give online at kkla.com. Tony Sellars, Director of Communications at Feed The Children joins us. $100 helps 5 students, $200 helps 10 students, and $500 helps a classroom of students.
• 38,000 homeless children in L.A. County, and 288,000 in the state.
• 1/3 of all American children will experience poverty at some point in their childhood. There are now 1.5 million homeless children in the U.S. 42% are under 6. Over a million attend public school.
• 40% of the families FTC assists are members of the "working poor" in which at least one person has a job – meaning, it often comes down to rent or food, medicine or food, utilities or food, etc.
• Poor children are twice as likely to repeat a grade, and half as likely to graduate from college.
• In 2010, a family of four is "poor" if their income is less than $25,000.
• 4 million American children are under the full-time care of their grandparents.
• FTC has distributed over 250,000 backpacks to homeless students in the past four years.
