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Freedom School Scholars, K-5th, March to End
Childhood Hunger
By Lynne Hamer
Toledo, Ohio – July 19, 2017
On Wednesday, Freedom School Scholars ages five-12 across
the nation took to the streets to make their views known and
educate others about the facts of childhood hunger in the
U.S. today. Fifty Toledo children, along with their
teachers, braved the heat and marched on Monroe Street as
part of the national event.
The young Freedom School scholars and their teachers had
been learning about hunger, why so many children are hungry
and which policies exist to decrease food insecurity. During
the march, they carried empty plates and placards with facts
about food insecurity to inform the public about the problem
and the possibilities for change. The children have spent
the summer at Monroe Street Church’s Freedom School in
national program of the Children’s Defense Fund that
combines intense literacy with citizenship skill-building.
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The national Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) has developed the
Freedom Schools program, based in the historic model of
Freedom Schools across the South that were an essential part
of the Civil Rights Movement. The summer version of the CDF
Freedom Schools includes a research-based, multicultural
curriculum organized around academic enrichment, parent and
family involvement, civic engagement and social action,
intergenerational leadership development and nutrition,
health and mental health.
Wednesday’s march was part of the civic engagement and
social action focus: learning to speak up for one’s own
rights and the rights of others and to effectively mobilize
community action and gain the attention of political
leaders, is a key citizenship skill.
Flourishing during the 1960s, primarily in the South,
Freedom Schools provided African Americans with an
alternative when many states were still holding out for
segregated schools. In the 1960s, schools’ curriculum
focused on skills, first and foremost literacy, necessary
for political, economic, and social equality. The CDF
Freedom Schools today hold true to that model and mission.
Freedom School teacher-mentors undergo intensive training
during a weeklong workshop at Alex Haley Farm in order to
maintain the program’s fidelity.
As stated on the
organization website, “The CDF Freedom Schools program seeks
to build strong, literate, and empowered children prepared
to make a difference in themselves, their families,
communities, nation and world today” (http://www.childrensdefense.org/programs/freedomschools/
).
The Monroe Street Neighborhood Center and Monroe Street
United Methodist Church has raised funds and rallied
volunteers to make this summer’s school possible. Rev.
Elizabeth Rand, a pastor at Monroe Street Church and Freedom
School Project Director, elaborated: “Freedom School
empowers children to know themselves as scholars and as
leaders in their community. It’s not a ‘children are our
future’; it is a ‘children are our present’: their views
matter now.”
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