Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer on Friday will announce a new partnership with local schools and issue a call to action regarding child hunger during a news conference scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the Kansas Food Bank Warehouse, 1919 E. Douglas.

The announcement will happen during an open house being hosted by the Kansas Food Bank in connection with National Hunger Action Month. The public is invited to come between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Friday to tour the Warehouse.

National Hunger Action Month, sponsored by Feeding America, is a nationwide call-to-action to end hunger in America. In Wichita, the initiative is marked by a city-wide campaign to end child hunger. The Kansas Food Bank recently launched www.NoMoreHungryKids.org, which provides ways for people to give time, money and voice to the cause of reducing child hunger, which has increased significantly since the downturn in the economy last fall.

Feeding America estimates that 1 in 8 Americans do not have dependable, consistent access to enough nutritious food to maintain good health. Recent hunger studies have also shown about 1 in 20 Kansas children regularly do not get enough food. That translates to about 7,000 hungry children in Wichita – a number that does not include the hundreds, if not thousands, more affected by chronic hunger since the sharp downturn in the economy a year ago, said Polly Basore of the Kansas Food Bank.

Since April 2008, Wichita unemployment has more than tripled, resulting in more than 32,000 area people without jobs. “With more parents out of work, more families are understandably struggling between paying bills and having enough food for their families,” said Brian Walker, CEO of the Kansas Food Bank.

The goal of the NoMoreHungryKids.org Web site is to engage the Wichita community in helping hungry children by encouraging individuals and organizations to sponsor each of the 63 schools now participating in the Kansas Food Bank’s Food4Kids back pack program. The backpack program is operated in cooperation with Wichita public schools. At the end of last year, more than 1,200 children who were believed to be going without food during the weekends received food each Friday to take home in their backpacks.

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