A Day in the Life of My Little Brood: Thursday Potlucks!

We are so lucky to live where we live..Boulder yes, but more specifically, Family Housing. When we were planning our move out here, Nathan and I had a hard time deciding whether to live in Family Housing or find a place of our own. It was a very difficult decision, but I'm so grateful for the one we finally settled on. We are surrounded by families who are in the exact same position as we are..difficult working hours, temporary living situations, living off loans and raising small children. Our apartment is one of several in a square with a nice green lawn in the middle and as our kids have gotten older and we've all gotten to know one another better and better, we've ended up with something pretty unique and amazing. I can't tell you how often we all end up stumbling out onto our shared green space and decide to share a picnic lunch and play the afternoon away. We have a whole year left here but I can't help but become really sentimental, knowing that this spring/summer will be our last to share these cozy days with our neighbors.

A couple of weeks ago, on one of these spontaneous cozy afternoons my neighbors and I decided to officially pronounce Thursdays "Potluck Thursdays" and meet outside around dinnertime to share the dinner hour. After we planned it and put it on our calendars, I came across GenerationOn's most recent campaign to combat childhood hunger in America, What Will You Bring To The Table? It struck a chord with me because we recently watched the film A Place At The Table and I can't stop thinking about it. GenerationOn is offering a tangible way for communities and families to contribute to fighting this problem and I felt determined to take part in it, and knew my neighbors would feel the same way. So, after taking action by contacting my local Representatives through the film's website I emailed my neighbors about the GenerationOn campaign and they, as predicted were all on board. We decided to add to our potluck by calling it a food drive as well, and we all brought some food to be donated to Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA) here in Boulder. After the potluck..just before I started writing this actually, I went to the What Will You Bring To The Table? website and entered our information. I had previously thought that I had to blog about it, but all I had to do was describe our potluck simply, how much food we generated and included a couple of pictures (just because I had them--you don't need to include pictures to participate). The food we generated (30lbs) will be matched by sponsors in the form of meals for hungry kids (25 meals!) throughout the United States. This is a national campaign so anyone can participate and in many ways so I encourage you to check out the site for ideas and inspiration. We plan to bring food donations to each of our April Thursday potlucks (the campaign ends at the end of this month) so I will be able to enter our project 3 times.

From the What Will You Bring To The Table? website:

In the U.S., more than 1 in 5 kids don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
Food insecurity affects families in every county of each state in the United States.
Three out of 5 teachers say they regularly see students come to class hungry.
There are almost 17 million kids in the United States experiencing hunger throughout the year. That’s more than the combined populations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.