Week Three Teen Issue: Poverty

Statistics:
-Over 13 million children in the US are currently living in poverty
-Children under age 6 living in poverty families with a female householder and no husband present: 54.8 percent
-According to the Bread for the World Institute 3.5 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. 9.6 million people, including 3 million children, live in these homes.

I think we can all admit that sometimes we are so wrapped up in our lives that we don’t pay attention to what’s going on around us. As teens, we have a tendency to overreact to small situations even if we don’t mean to. If you asked every high school student what their worst problem was at the moment you would most likely receive similar responses. Granted, no one’s problems are any less important than everyone else’s, but sometimes it’s helpful to realize that what we are going through might not be as awful as we think. There is always someone going through a tougher time. In a few years most of us won’t even be able to remember the fights we got into with our friends, or the big final we didn’t have time to study for. Those are things that we can overcome, but some teens are facing things so much more challenging. Some kids come home to find their house with no food while others don’t even have a home to go to. Maybe it’s time to lend a hand to someone in need. It helps to put in perspective what is truly important in life.