When you think of hungry children, what comes to mind?  It’s the kids on the sponsorship commercials, kids from developing countries, right?  But what about the 12.6 million hungry children in the United States?

No, that’s not a typo: 12.6 million.

When I first read that statistic, I almost fell over.  I consider myself informed, educated, and socially aware, and yet somehow, the needs of hungry children in my hometown wasn’t even on my radar.  But once I read the shocking statistics, that 50% of food stamp recipients are children, that one in three people standing in a soup kitchen line is a child, and that one in ten households in America don’t have access to enough food, I wanted to take the next step.  I wanted to help.

I went through my mental checklist of available resources, asking myself how I could help and what contribution would make the biggest difference.  Here’s what I’ve decided to do:

On Saturday, June 20th my children’s summer day will be hosting a Great American Bake Sale.  The Great American Bake Sale program allows anyone who’s interested to hold their own bake sale on behalf of Share Our Strength, a non-profit organization working to end childhood hunger in the United States by 2015.

Hosting a Bake Sale is easy: sign up on their website to receive participant materials, including a personalized online fundraising page, recipes, coupons from baking related sponsors, and an all encompassing planning checklist.  Then, host the Bake Sale wherever you want, in whichever way makes the most sense in your community.  100% of the funds you raise go directly to after-school and summer feeding programs in local communities.

For my camp’s Great American Bake Sale (which HandsIn will be helping to sponsor), I’ve partnered with TKO Helping Hands, a local non-profit organization working to get kids involved in community service projects from an early age.

And this isn’t just any traditional bake sale; we’re raising the bar by making it a BYOC (bring your own container) event.  Hey, the greener, the better!

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Nicole Antoinette is the founder of HandsIn.org and likes to think of herself as a professional world-changer.  She’s also the Director of a children’s summer day camp in Westlake Village, California, a freelance writer, and a die-hard cheesecake connoisseur.