The History of Dare to Care

By Founder, Bettsie Wild

Two years ago, my then first grade daughter, started coming home from school stating she was starving. I asked her if she ate her lunch and she said she was sharing with a friend who never had lunch and was hungry. I started sending extra food but it wasn’t long before my daughter was bringing the extra food home untouched. She explained to me that she was getting in trouble for sharing her food and that it was against the school rules.

The next day I approached the school with my daughter to discuss her dilemma and learned that many children in our schools that for different reasons are not eating. For some it is financial and for others it may be abuse or neglect. Due to allergies, most schools do not allow children to share their lunches. The district rule is that after three lunch charges, a student is only given a cold pack which is a small container of apple sauce and a pint of milk – until the charges are paid.

Currently there are over one thousand children identified by The Student Nutrition Department of the Anchorage School District who need benefit of this program. These are children who routinely come to school with no sack lunch, no lunch money and are unable to charge due to excessive unpaid charges. There are additional students identified by teachers, principals, nurses and other staff members.

I created a charitable organization that anonymously helps feed these children called Dare to Care. We do fundraisers throughout the year and have Hollywood celebrities on board to help promote the program.

This is our third year of operation. During the first year we were in two schools helping 35 children. Last school year we expanded into sixteen schools and helped 380 children. We hope to grow even more this year. Our goal is to ensure that “No Child Goes Hungry” in all 93 Anchorage School District Schools. Every school in the district reported a need for this program. For some it is only 2-5 children and for others it is up to 40. Hunger and abuse is every where – in all neighborhoods. The estimated budget to cover every child identified in the Anchorage School District is $250,000 annually.

Our long term goal is to help children in all of Alaskan schools. We currently have efforts in Fairbanks, Kenai and Wasilla to raise money in those areas to help children-in-need in those schools as well.

Related Statistics

Alaska is number one in the nation for child abuse and neglect and 26% higher than the next state in line.

There were over 2,500 reported allegations of abuse and neglect in Alaska for the month February 2007 alone.

There are 34 million hungry people in America – 14 million are children.

1 in 6 American children live in poverty.

Every other person in a shelter is a child under 4 years old; and every 3rd person in line at a soup kitchen is a child.

There are an estimated 2,400 homeless children in the Anchorage School District.

There are 27 Title One Schools in the Anchorage School District. These are schools that have 50 – 100% student body that is below the federal poverty level.