McKenna Greenleaf Faulk knows her hunger statistics.

In a recent interview with TakePart, she explained that one in six Americans are at risk of hunger. Meanwhile, this country wastes about 40 percent of all edible food. If Americans wasted just 15 percent less food, it would be enough to feed 25 million people. Not to mention how it would help the environment since nearly 33 million tons of waste end up in landfills.

“The average American wastes about 28 to 43 pounds of food a month,” McKenna, 13, says. “If we wasted less food, we could feed more people.”

That’s why she and some classmates at Thomas Starr King Middle School in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles are working to curb food waste. They have launched 37 Degrees From Hunger at their school and hope to become a model for other schools across the country.

“There was all of this unwanted food lying on the table, and we thought why not take that and give it to someone who needs it, like to the homeless people in the neighborhood who may want it,” she says.

Their project was spurred by a teacher’s assignment to create a community-service project by identifying a problem and solving it.

As McKenna soon learned, taking on a problem like hunger is no easy task. She was told that a similar project had already been attempted by some students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Their program didn’t go too well after a homeless man got ill from food that had been left out at room temperature, and the school district was sued.

I can’t start off big with the entire population, but I can make a change in my community and maybe that can be a message for everyone.

But McKenna seemed to think there had to be a way for the idea to work.

“I said, ‘How about a refrigerator?’ ” she says.

That way the food would be kept at the ideal temperature—37 degrees. The food would then be put in coolers when it was time for a homeless shelter representative to pick it up for transport.

McKenna maneuvered through the red tape at the school district level and gained permission for the project. The students raised money for the refrigerator and received a grant from Lowe’s.

The food that is being sent to shelters is cafeteria food that has never been opened, like milk, bananas, and even pizza. It should go somewhere other than the trash can, McKenna says.

“Americans don’t have a food culture because we eat everything,” she says. “We just eat and eat, and we take more than we can handle. We aren’t even grateful for the food that we have, and this extra food could be given to other people who are grateful for it. People who are less fortunate could use this food.”

The students are spreading the word about their project through a website and word-of-mouth. When school starts again, McKenna is hoping that a local city councilman will come see their project so they can discuss the benefits of other schools adapting this model.

“I can’t start off big with the entire population, but I can make a change in my community and maybe that can be a message for everyone,” she says.

Original source: takepart.com

APARECIDA, Brazil (AP) — Pope Francis made an emotional plea for Roman Catholics to shun materialism in the first public Mass of his initial international foreign trip as pontiff Wednesday, then headed to Rio for a meeting with drug addicts heavy in symbolism.

The session was to meant to drive home the message that the humble pope has repeatedly delivered during his short papacy: that the Catholic Church must focus on the poor, those who are suffering and the outcasts of society.

During his stop at the hospital, Francis was expected to stick with the theme of faith and sacrifice that he spoke about earlier Wednesday in his homily during Mass in Aparecida, a small town halfway between Rio and Sao Paulo. The pontiff urged Catholics to resist the "ephemeral idols" of money, power and pleasure.

It was an emotional trip to one of the most important shrines in Latin America.

Thousands packed into the huge Basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, tucked into an agricultural region of verdant fields, and tens of thousands more braved a cold rain outside to catch a glimpse of the first pope from the Americas returning to a shrine of great meaning to the continent and to him personally.

Before the Mass, Francis stood in silent prayer in front of the 15-inch-tall image of the Virgin of Aparecida, the "Black Mary," his eyes tearing up as he breathed heavily. He later carried it in his arms. It was a deeply personal moment for this pontiff, who has entrusted his papacy to the Virgin Mary and, like many Catholics in Latin America, places great importance in devotion to Mary.

After his Mass, the pope blessed the tens of thousands gathered outside the basilica and announced that he would return to Aparecida in 2017, the year that marks the 300th anniversary of a fisherman finding the Black Mary statue in a nearby river.

During his homily, Francis urged Catholics to keep their values of faith, generosity and fraternity, a message he was expected to repeat later in the day during a visit to a drug rehabilitation center in Rio de Janeiro.

"It is true that nowadays, to some extent, everyone including our young people feels attracted by the many idols which take the place of God and appear to offer hope: money, success, power, pleasure," he said. "Often a growing sense of loneliness and emptiness in the hearts of many people leads them to seek satisfaction in these ephemeral idols."

The church is struggling in Latin America to keep Catholics from straying to evangelical and Pentecostal churches that often promise help in finding material wealth, an alluring attraction in a poverty-wracked continent. Francis' top priority as pope has been to reach out to the world's poor and inspire Catholic leaders to go to slums and other peripheries to preach.

It was no coincidence, then, that the first major event of his first foreign trip as pope was a Mass in Aparecida. The shrine, which draws 11 million pilgrims a year, hosted a critical 2007 meeting of Latin American bishops who, under the guidance of then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, drafted a mission statement on how to reinvigorate the faith on the continent.

"I've seen people in my own congregation leave because the Evangelicals offer them something new and exciting, and the Catholic Church was seen as kind of old and stuffy," said Marcia Cecilia de Souza, the 52-year-old owner of a private school in the southern state of Santa Catarina, as she searched for newspaper to stuff into her soaked leather boots. "Francis is such an inspiration, so humble and giving, I think he's going to bring people back into the fold."

Unlike the scenes of chaos that greeted Francis upon his Monday arrival in Rio, when a mob of faithful swarmed his motorcade from the airport, the security situation in Aparecida was far more controlled. Chest-high barriers kept the faithful far from his car. Soldiers in camouflage, emergency crews in raincoats and other uniformed security forces stood guard along his route while his bodyguards walked along the side of his vehicle.

Not all were pleased with the increased security.

"They put up a Berlin Wall between us and the pope and we couldn't get anywhere near him. You could tell he wanted to get close to us but the police really insisted on this separation," said Joao Franklin, a 51-year-old from Minas Gerais state. "I felt really excluded by all these barriers and don't see the need for them. We're all here to show our love for him and we just want to get close to show him that love."

Nacilda de Oliveira Silva, a short 61-year-old maid, perched at the front of the crowd though she was barely tall enough to see over the metal barrier.

"I have been up for almost 24 hours, most of that time on my feet and in the rain and the cold. But I don't feel any pain. I feel bathed in God's glory, and that's because of the pope. For me, it's the same thing as seeing Jesus pass by. That's how moved I feel."

Before the Mass, some pilgrims sought shelter from the Southern Hemisphere winter chill beneath tarps while others wrapped themselves in blankets and sleeping bags. And many left offerings to the Virgin.

Lena Halfeld, a 65-year-old housewife, paused to add her offering to a cardboard box filled with stuffed animals, leg braces and other personal objects. She deposited an embossed invitation to her niece's December wedding, which she was praying for the Virgin to bless.

"I have real faith in the powers of the Virgin of Aparecida," said Halfeld, adding she had made the hours-long trip to the church once a week for a year during her husband's recent illness. "Now he's cured, so I owe it all to her. I can't think of a more wonderful setting to see the new pope."

Francis is in Brazil for World Youth Day, a church event that brings together young Catholics from around the world roughly every three years. Approximately 350,000 young pilgrims signed up to officially take part in the Youth Day events.

In Aparecida, 16-year-old Natalia Pereira, a high school student from Sao Paulo state, said the cold rain she endured to get to the basilica was a "test of faith."

"I've been up all night in line, I'm soaked to the bone and freezing but I'm so excited that it's worth it," said Pereira, who tried to huddle from the drizzle beneath a friend's large umbrella. "This is my first time seeing a pope and this was an opportunity of a lifetime for me. I wasn't about to let it go because of a little rain."