IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 12/07/05 CONTACT: Sharman Russell 538-9111

Silver City- Alimento para el Niño or Nourishment for the Child is a new program founded by Sharman Russell, a professor of humanities at Western New Mexico University and Silver City Schools District Board member, which provides pantry foods for the children of Harrison Schmitt and Sixth Street Elementary schools in Silver City.

According to current statistics from the Roadrunner Food Bank in Albuquerque, an alarming 26 percent of children in New Mexico live in poverty and 20 percent of New Mexico’s children regularly miss meals due to lack of income in their homes.

Nourishment for the Child hopes to prevent children from missing meals by providing backpacks filled with non-perishable, child-friendly, pantry foods which include pudding cups, boxes of fruit juice, fruit snacks, pop-up cans of spaghetti or ravioli with meat, Vienna sausages, granola bars, boxes of raisins, and individual boxes of cereal. Russell stressed that the lids on canned goods must be child accessible and noted that pop-up cans are especially important because most of the children must prepare the food themselves. The backpacks are sent home with the children on Friday afternoon in order to prevent skipping meals over the weekend.

Social workers and counselors identified the 24 selected children who currently receive backpacks by noticing which children seemed especially hungry Monday morning or who simply stated “I was hungry last night.”

WNMU is now participating in the program and began collecting donations on Nov. 21. Donations can be delivered to the mailroom on campus. WNMU faculty and staff involved with Nourishment for the Child include Mary Hittle, Staff Senate President; Cynthia Bettison, WNMU Museum Director; and Sandra Griffin, WNMU Faculty Senate President.

WNMU joins the Silver City Rotary Club, Kiwanis, Chapter BR of PEO Sisterhood, AmBank, Western Bank, Albertson’s, Food Basket, Wal-Mart, Silver City Food Co-op and many other community businesses and individuals.

Russell encourages those interested in donating at WNMU to drop their donated food items off to the mailroom on campus. Monetary donations are also appreciated and checks can be made out to the Volunteer Center, with a memo mentioning the food pantry program for children. The money will be used to purchase food and backpacks.

If you would like to participate in Nourishment for the Child or would like more information, please contact Sharman Russell at 538-9111.

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CAPTION: Pictured, left to right, are Sandra Griffin, WNMU Faculty Senate President; Sharman Russell, Founder of Nourishment for the Child and Professor of Humanities; Cynthia Bettison, WNMU Museum Director; and Mary Hittle, Staff Senate President. They are in the WNMU campus mailroom where food donations for Nourishment for the Child are stored. Prior to the picture being taken, the donations were packed into backpacks and sent home with children over the weekend, leaving the mailroom barren and awaiting new donations.