How to Use $100 to Make the World a Better Place

Cereal. Mush. Oatmeal. Granola. Fruit Loops. Frosted Flakes.
Cheerios. Captain Crunch. Kix. Raisin Bran and Choco-berries.

I will take my $100 bill, double coupons and newspaper ad
for items on sale and I will go shopping. My list will include all the boxes and bags of cereal my shopping cart
will hold. It might take two carts to
carry it all, because I am a good shopper. Cereal that routinely sells for
$3.49 a box can be found for less than $1.50 if you know where to look and have
the time. $100 will buy 67 boxes and
help many little children stop that growling in their stomachs.

Vitamins, protein, taste and kid appeal are my guiding
factors when I hit the stores looking for cereal bargains for the local food
pantry. My goal is to get the most for
the money and to be able to offer kids a meal with some nutrition that they can
fix themselves if necessary.

Beans, rice, meat and vegetables taste delicious when there
is an adult present to cook. It would be a wonderful world if families could
count on having a sit down dinner each night around the table. In an ideal
world, there would be plenty of good food and pleasant conversation shared at
that table.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

As a parent educator, I have heard the stories of kids and
families going hungry and kids left to forage for food on their own. The number
of latch-key kids in America

is staggering. Many children as young as
5 or 6 are coming home to an empty house and bare cupboards because parents are
working at low level jobs just to keep a roof over their heads. They barely
have time to make it to the local food pantry and certainly don’t have time to
shop for bargains or good tasting cereal for the kids. So I do it for
them.

Kids need to be able to have foods readily available that
are easy to fix, contain some nutrition and taste good. If parents are
unavailable, either physically or emotionally, the children need food that
fills the belly. If necessary, cereal
can be eaten right out of the box.

I buy and donate peanut butter and jelly. I buy and donate milk, apples and bread. But mostly, I buy and donate cereal, a lot of
cereal.