- We lost everything, everything in that timeframe.

Lost family members 'cause people didn't think I was doing enough.

- I used to live on a farm and I used to come here and get groceries because I needed the help.

- It's worse now than it's ever been to keep going forward.

Don't give up, no matter what.

You can't give up.

If you're working, keep working.

Don't quit.

Don't stop.

- Everybody wants to be able to feed their kids without having to ask for help.

(soft music) - [Ann] In Indiana, the percentage of children going hungry has long been worse than the national average, about 15% statewide.

Especially now with a renewed national focus on hunger, you'll hear many statistics on families and children unable to access quality nutritional food.

In Indiana, the rate of childhood hunger varies from county to county, ranging from one in six children all the way to one in four, all numbers that are far too high.

Looking at it another way, the Indiana Youth Institute's annual Kids Count report asks parents about their ability to feed their children.

In 2022, 1/3 of families reported that food costs keep their kids from eating enough.

Contrary to what you might think, most of these children are not homeless or neglected.

They actually live in working families and have parents who are employed, but still struggle to put nutritious food on the table.

- These are the kids next to my kids in classrooms.

This is the person on the soccer team that I sit next to their parents and have no clue that they struggle every week.

- There are pockets of hunger throughout the entire state, not just in urban or rural areas.

And I think that that would be one of the biggest fallacies that needs to be addressed, that hunger only exists in certain areas in the state.

Hunger does not look alike for every child.

- [Ann] The need for food assistance is being addressed by food pantries, by charities like churches, and by government programs like school meals and SNAP, which provides 85% of the food.

But food insecurity and hunger still reach deep into our Hoosier communities, into the lives of families you may know.

It is all around us, often hidden and often where you least expect to find it.

Families, especially those working hard to create the most normal life they can for their kids, don't want their neighbors to know how they struggle to keep food on the table, yet it's a crisis that can impact every aspect of a child's life, now and far into the future.

That's because poor nutrition in childhood creates poor outcomes for children and young people, both in the short and long term.

- So I think that it's very important that people understand that nutrition is a part of health.

And so if you aren't able to get the foods that you need to remain healthy, it's very difficult to control your blood pressure or your blood sugar if you aren't eating the proper foods.

- And that impacts not only their physical health, but also their mental health.

With school-aged children who are hungry, it can impact their ability to learn, something as simple as not having the energy to play.

It can affect all your organ systems.

- [Ann] Not having access to healthy food on a regular basis has a ripple effect across a child's life.

Former Indianapolis public safety director, Troy Riggs, knows from research, data, and what he's seen on the streets how a lack of food undermines children's success.

- If a child shows up at school on Monday and they're hungry, they're not focused on schoolwork.

They're focused on food.

What about those families that have no idea when their next meal is going to be, how they're gonna provide for their family member, their loved one?

That will give you a sense of desperation that people are going through.

(soft music) - [Ann] According to the USDA, about 700,000 Hoosiers are what is known as food insecure.

This hunger ranges across Indiana from border to border and affects families with children at a greater percentage.

But why, at a time when unemployment is remarkably low and food is plentiful, are so many Hoosier children facing the painful reality of hunger?

- We have a world now that we have two income earners in a home that possibly both have two jobs.

They might be an Uber driver and people are just trying to make ends meet and it's just not happening today.

And it's really the hidden poverty of our time, the working poor.

- The conversation is always about rent and no one wants to be homeless.

And so patients will work that extra job or take an extra shift to be able to make sure that they can keep a roof over their head.

And then I think that other things like food and other sustenance are placed secondary or sometimes even tertiary because no one wants to be out on the street.

- I'm so disappointed that in the richest, most powerful country in the world, that we have kids that go to bed hungry.

Possibly one in five kids in the state of Indiana go to bed hungry.

- [Ann] The USDA defines food security as access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.

US Health and Human Services says food insecurity disproportionately impacts communities of color, people living in rural areas, people with disabilities, older adults, LGBTQ+ individuals, military families, and veterans.

This is playing out right here at home in Indiana.

Jim Morris is an executive with the Pacers Basketball organization now, but for several years, he was executive director of the World Food Program, the food assistance arm of the United Nations.

- A child to be hungry is wrong and it compromises the child's life from the very beginning.

The child has no chance to be successful in school.

Hunger is the single greatest health issue in the world.

(soft music) - Everybody wants to be able to feed their kids without having to ask for help.

And especially parents that are working should be able to put food on their table.

It shouldn't be so prohibitively expensive to support your family if you're working.

- [Ann] When you think of poverty in America, what image comes to mind?

Did you know that 85% of poor people live outside of high poverty neighborhoods and that 85% of counties with persistent poverty are rural counties?

Hunger doesn't know city boundaries.

It is everywhere in Indiana.

We're going to meet three Hoosier families, three working families trying to do everything right, but still fighting an uphill battle to keep their children fed.

You should know you won't actually see very many children because the stigma of hunger is still very powerful.

- Looking back on life and the things I experienced here is things I don't want my children to experience.

And so everything that I do now is to try to help build them a brighter future and to give them more of an opportunity to be successful in life.

- [Ann] Lamont Hollins grew up on the near east side of Indianapolis in a single parent home.

When his mother was killed outside their apartment, young Lamont went to live with his grandmother, a woman who epitomized the value of hard work and community to him.

Lamont and his wife have always worked until Lamont suffered a debilitating shoulder injury while employed by a shipping company.

Even then, Lamont found joy in mentoring young people and in feeding others.

It was another value passed on by his grandmother.

- I had to find something that I could do and it was something we started building off of.

So when I come back from college, I lived here with my grandmother.

By far the favorite day of the week was Sundays 'cause you always knew that we were gonna have a meal, a big meal.

And so I grew fond of barbecuing.

We grilled all the time, nonstop.

It could be three o'clock in the morning.

We was firing up the grill.

- [Ann] Over years of working to build a barbecue business and simultaneously working around the legal issues of his injury, the Hollins family, including four sons, has faced successes and setbacks.

- I had multiple surgeries in between there, trying to figure out what was going on.

The disability process within itself was a whole nother arena.

The attitude was you keep working until you die.

- [Ann] Still, the Hollinses kept cooking.

An arrangement to sell their custom sauces didn't pan out.

An east side restaurant let them barbecue in an adjacent parking lot until local ordinances on commercial cooking operations priced them out of business.

- So on the weekends, we would set up a tent, so it would be me, my wife, and the boys.

- [Ann] The family ultimately moved out of Indianapolis to a suburb to be closer to the resources that could assist them and their children.

Lamont is making the most of his time finishing his college degree while continuing to work in grocery delivery.

His wife continues to work as well and they still cater events for fans of their food.

But as with many families struggling to keep the bills paid, every little setback, a car problem, an illness, keeps them from taking the next step towards success.

Still, these parents are determined that they will leave their kids a better legacy than they had.

- We continue to work hard every day and crush down the roadblocks in front of us and opening up the path for them.

- [Customer] Hello.

- Hello.

And this one here is our hog roast we're gonna have, our silent auction, and we've got a motorcycle ride and car show.

Whole bunch of good stuff in there.

- [Customer] Yeah.

- [Ann] Carolyn Begley embodies the phrase starting over.

From the rural community of Jennings County in Southeastern Indiana, Carolyn suffered a severe brain trauma in her twenties and has spent the intervening years relearning everything.

- I'd had brain surgery and I didn't know anything about anything.

I didn't know my colors.

I had to relearn 'em, all my shapes, my signs, and I've just learned how to read.

- [Ann] Carolyn now works in the very food pantry that once helped her.

She lives in what is termed a complex household, a situation in which more generations and family members live together because of strained financial circumstances.

A widow, she now lives with her sister while helping raise her teenage grandson.

- I used to live on a farm and I used to come here and get groceries.

- [Ann] Now Carolyn works at the Good Samaritan Food Pantry, providing the services she needed then and still needs now.

But she's making her way through a training program.

- It's like I was on disability when I first came here.

We retrain under the National Able program.

I relearn things.

It's like I'm learning shipping and handling right now.

The end of December of 2023 will be my end of my four years and then I will be able to go on to the community.

- [Ann] Financial security is still distant for Carolyn.

She and her grandson had to pool their money for a repair on the car she uses to get them both to work.

She's already been offered retail jobs, but remains committed to finishing her training program.

- And when I first came here, I couldn't add.

I couldn't spell.

I couldn't use a calculator.

I could not make a decision of any kind on my own.

This is my purpose, helping others, and the pantry is my purpose is in life.

God gave me a reason to live, a reason to help others, a reason to have to think.

And these people here have helped me.

- Every morning I get up about five o'clock and, well, Monday through Friday.

And we just gotta keep our head, you know, if we can just keep it above water, then okay.

I can survive.

I have to.

I have no choice.

Yeah, and I think that has a lot to do with that, has a lot to do with being in the service for all those years, having to get by.

Oh, I can roll it up.

- [Ann] Robert Miles did tours of duty in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

He remains grateful for his ability to serve his country and has always found a sense of attainment in working.

His family moved from their home in southern Indiana to Hamilton County because they believed the schools in Carmel would be a better fit for their son's special education needs.

He has struggled for years to acquire a job that will allow them to find comfortable living conditions.

- That's why it's difficult here for me to go from job to job because I never felt stable or I never felt, I didn't have that feeling of accomplishment that I did when I was in service.

I felt like I was bulletproof.

I felt like I was a superhero.

When you put the uniform on, it just makes you feel like you're wearing armor, like nothing can hurt you, nothing can bother you.

- [Ann] After a lengthy and anxious application process, Robert was able to get a position he was hoping for at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Indianapolis.

It is full-time work and he finds it very fulfilling.

- Once you work at the VA, your job, your service never stops.

You continue that and it just makes me feel good.

So this is where I park every day.

Go in here.

Then I'll get my mask on and get my bag of lunch together and that's it.

- [Ann] Unfortunately, the Miles continue to struggle to find housing in their chosen community.

Robert's wife home schools their son while the couple continues to apply for rental houses.

At the time we spoke to them, they were living in a hotel and being provided food through an agency.

Rising home costs and technology issues many of us take for granted can impede families like theirs trying to take the next step up toward financial independence.

- Well, it's very complicated, actually.

When you fill it out, they require you to submit and upload pay stubs, bank statements possibly.

They want your ID.

Everything is online.

You put your credit card in to pay the fees.

Who knows?

That could be your last money that you had and you're giving it to someone else when it could feed your family.

- If you're living in poverty, you're likely to be moving around a lot.

You're likely to be evicted or staying on your sister's couch for a while or trying to move into a safer neighborhood.

And so all that moving can separate you from your important pieces of paper.

And then getting copies of things actually cost money, which we don't always think about.

So all those little things can be barriers that we don't think about in terms of accessing food.

- [Ann] Christine Garner is the executive director of the Marshall County Neighborhood Center in Plymouth, Indiana.

She's been witness to the same problems and frustrations for her entire life.

- I was born and raised in Plymouth.

As a young girl, I remember very vivid memories of my parents' Sunday school class providing Christmas for families in our community.

And I can remember walking into homes that had dirt floors and just realizing, this happens in my hometown.

Like it's just, that was a memory that I just can't, I can't ever shake.

We just miss that rural image of families who are trying really hard and kids are left alone to fend for themselves or they just can't make their ends meet in a family and there's very limited supply of food in their house.

- [Ann] The Marshall County Neighborhood Center isn't the only food pantry in Plymouth and the surrounding area, but it offers a wide range of services.

Christine sees how every little setback from transportation to paperwork combines to create a massive barrier to families just trying to get by.

- This is where I wish I could help people connect all these little dots.

For example, a lot of factories.

We have a lot of factories.

A lot of our middle income families are employed through a factory.

They have a point system.

So if you miss work and you have 10 points now because two points for missing work, a point and a half for being late one day or having to leave early or half a day, at 10 points, you lose your job.

Are they gonna have to be home sometimes because their child is sick?

And how do we make that okay?

Not every family here has a grandma and an aunt or a uncle or a sibling who can say, "Well, I'll come stay with your kid."

They shouldn't be going to work if they're sick.

They should be allowed to stay home.

They should be allowed to take their child to a doctor.

- [Child] Cheese.

- [Ann] Pastor John Barker of Garrard Chapel in Bowling Green, Indiana sees the working poor crisis play out at his church's food pantry month after month.

The pantry is open eight days a month and serves clients from up to 15 surrounding counties.

- We try to provide everything for the family from the seniors all the way to the youngest.

And that's one reason we're open on Wednesday and then we're open two nights a week, second and third and the second and the fourth Thursday for those parents that work because just because you work and make 10 or $12 an hour don't mean you support a family or two or three, all right?

Especially with the cost and the drama that's going on in most of their lives today.

- [Ann] Barker is a military veteran who will tell you his specialties are logistics and loving the people who come to his church and pantry, important characteristics when upwards of 250 families come for food in a single day.

- I see stress in the parents.

I see stress in the grandparents.

I want 'em to be healthy, I want 'em to be happy.

Those things food can give you, but it's just part of the formula.

- One important barrier that we find with our families who are struggling to feed their children is pride.

Many do not want to admit that they need the assistance.

- The first time I came in to get food here, I felt like the lowest of the lowest.

But I felt like, man, this is really hitting the bottom.

This is really low.

And I felt really, really bad.

- Well, what we have found through the pandemic that a lot of us are a paycheck away from poverty, homelessness, and it's not just that certain section of people that we used to stereotype.

- Like how can you be proud if you're in this position?

- If you're working full-time, you should be able to meet your needs.

You should be able to pay your rent.

You should be able to put food on the table.

You should be able to pay for basic things like healthcare.

And if you're working full-time or even working two or three jobs and still not able to do that, there's a problem with what we're paying people in this country.

- [Ann] In 2022, decades of public policy support, much of it through tax credits at the federal level, have finally narrowed the national poverty gap.

But when it comes to keeping children fed, that gap is not closed.

- There are lots and lots of programs that help provide food to people, but if they don't know where those programs are, how to access them, they don't have the time or the ability to get to those places, they're still not getting the food that they need.

- [Ann] Families know the challenge of raising children even under the best of circumstances.

Now imagine being a single parent or even a household of two or more working adults, holding down between three and four jobs to make ends meet, keep your children housed and fed with some kind of food you can afford, then fighting to produce paperwork and manage online forms with little sleep.

What is the next step to reducing the barriers working families face in trying to achieve a strong, healthy, and consistent diet?

Leading Indiana employers increasingly believe the answer is jobs with the wages and benefits needed to support stable and productive lives.

In Indiana's economy, a sustainable wage is at least $18 an hour with health benefits.

Cook Medical and Cook Group are major international manufacturers based in Indiana.

They are working with Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana to help change both the wage and food access narrative in an Indianapolis neighborhood.

It was an eye-opening experience for Cook President Pete Yonkman.

- When we think about insufficiency of food or food access, quite honestly, this is not an issue I knew a whole lot about.

Our first focus was on providing a manufacturing opportunity, providing jobs opportunity, partnering with Goodwill to provide wraparound services like life coaches and transportation and childcare, all those things that we thought would be necessities for being successful at work.

So if you're at home and you can't reliably feed your kids breakfast or you don't have access to food, how do you expect somebody to show up for work and be focused on quality?

All the things that we want for our employees.

We want 'em to be engaged and thinking about the quality of the products, particularly in a field like ours, where we're making medical devices.

- [Ann] Now, not only does the neighborhood have reliable wage-earning jobs in the partnership between Cook Medical and Goodwill, the literal front yard of the facility will boast a new partnership, one that brings a new local, affordable grocery store operated by two young local entrepreneurs.

Unhealthy convenience store food will no longer have to be the first option and sometimes the only option for workers or neighbors.

- If they're worrying about those things, then they can't think about and be engaged in the work that we're doing, particularly in a highly safety sensitive work environment.

- [Ann] Kiersten Janik is the Chief Talent Officer for Heritage Construction Materials.

The company's workers are most obvious in road construction zones around the state in bright vests and hard hats, placing orange barrels and repairing roadways, dangerous work that requires sharp focus.

- We believe a sustainable business model is not only one that we care about employees, but one where we can manage turnover.

So from a sustainability perspective for our business, it's important that we're meeting those basic needs.

We're paying a living wage and that employees can show up feeling like they can be engaged and that they don't need to be out looking for something else to meet those basic needs.

- [Ann] Heritage Construction Materials and more than 60 other Indianapolis employers are part of the growing Good Wages Initiative.

The Good Wages Initiative certifies, celebrates, and showcases Marion County employers who provide full-time employees a wage of at least $18 an hour and access to health insurance benefits.

More food pantries will not solve the problem of hungry children in working families.

They need systemic responses like the Good Wages Initiative.

- I think as employers, we really have to step up and they have the least amount of barriers and stressors in their way to do that, one of those being food insecurity.

And it's a community issue and we have to be good stewards of the community.

- [Ann] The Indiana Community Action Poverty Institute has new data on working Hoosiers.

The Institute found that of the 20 most common occupations in Indiana, 12 pay a median hourly wage less than $18.

Nine of them are actually under $15 an hour.

For example, there are nearly 100,000 people employed in Indiana as fast food counter workers.

There are over 92,000 freight handlers, jobs we called essential during the pandemic.

- Poverty is not a choice.

Poverty is a circumstance people find themselves in.

Most of them are working.

And if we aren't paying people enough money to support themselves, we need to be thinking about whether or not that's a system that's fair.

- If you've got one in four kids who aren't able to be secure in where they're getting their next meal, that's a crisis that we need to be thinking about.

We can't be successful as a state.

We talk a lot about workforce development, talk a lot about opportunities.

If you've got one in four kids who are struggling, it's gonna be very hard road.

- [Ann] Research shows that government, churches, and charities respond in good, real-time ways to keep families fed.

But ending hunger for good will require a deeper commitment.

- I do not want my neighbors to be hungry.

I do not want a single child for whatever reason to be hungry.

And we have the wherewithal of finances, commodities, programs, passion, commitment to see that people who are for whatever reason, often not of their own making, are helped and supported, encouraged.

That's the way it needs to be.

- In order for the economy to turn around and in order for people to get back to normal, they have to speak up.

They have a voice to use.

I fought for that voice.

They should use it.

- Almost every one of 'em say, "I'm doing it for my kids."

Right?

It's I want them to see the benefit of what this is.

I wanna improve their life.

I want them to see the value of work.

So I see it as not just a way to change what this person's life is and to be able to make a difference there, but you're making a generational difference.

- If we do make it, or when we do make it is more the question, we are going to be able to put more of a imprint on our community and being able to bring meaningful jobs that changes people's lives.

- Right now I'm drowning, and without my family, I don't know where I would be right now.

I work hard.

Just give me something.

Give me some hope so I can keep moving forward.

(soft music)