Back to school: Hunger still hits 1 in 5 Ohio children

The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.

As a new school year begins in Ohio, an old problem persists: child hunger. Hunger relief programs continue to strain under the demand, while receiving less support from state and federal sources.

According to Feeding America, 1 in 5 children in the state face hunger, amounting to more than 517,000 kids.

“You have a lot of people bending heaven and earth to get food into kids mouths, but the problem is, we can’t do it alone,” said Deacon Nick Bates, director of Hunger Network in Ohio, which partners with religious congregations and local agencies to address hunger.

Bates has seen firsthand the compromises that have to be made at church