Hungry to Learn?
Why Meeting Students’ Basic Needs Is an Urgent Education Issue
I have some good news, but also some heartbreaking news.
The good news is that we’ve identified another school with a high concentration of poverty where we will build a new resource center (Zion’s Closet) to support students who are in need or wrestling with homelessness.
The heartbreaking news is why it is needed.
The other day, I visited Love T. Nolan Elementary School in South Fulton. I spent time with the principal, Dr. Smith, who walked me through the school and gave me a firsthand look at the real challenges her students and staff face every day.
With more than 800 students, the school is overcrowded. Dr. Smith explained that she has had to convert storage spaces and non-instructional rooms into makeshift classrooms just to create space for learning. But even that is not the most urgent problem.
She told me that many of her students are missing school, not because they are unwilling to learn, but because they are navigating life without their most basic needs being met.
You read that right. They miss school because basic needs go unmet.
Some children come to school hungry. Others stay home because families are too do not allow their children attend because of their need. This is heartbreaking, and it should break your heart, too.
As we stood in what used to be the teacher’s lounge, she explained that this room would now become the site of a Zion’s Closet.
This space will be equipped to meet the most urgent needs of students and families. It may include food, clothing, hygiene products, washing machines, and possibly even a shower. A simple room that will serve as a lifeline for students who need just enough dignity to make it through the school day.
I also spoke with the school’s social worker and homelessness liaison, who serves families experiencing homelessness. She shared that funding for transportation assistance has been cut.
In the recent past, her team could help families get their children to school safely. Now, many are left stranded. And what happens when students cannot get to school? They do not attend. When attendance breaks down, engagement breaks down. And when engagement breaks down, learning suffers.
While I was still processing what I saw and heard at Love T. Nolan, I learned something even more disturbing.
This week, the USDA was ordered to cancel the annual Household Food Security Report.1 This is the survey that, for nearly 30 years, has tracked food insecurity in the United States. It has shaped policy, informed school meal programs, guided food bank funding, and helped highlight where help is most needed. Without this report, it becomes easier to ignore the need that continues to grow, even in Title I schools. But pretending does not make the reality disappear.
When we stop reporting hunger or need, we stop acknowledging the people who experience it. When data disappears, so do the real-time stories that educators are living out inside under-resourced schools. The absence of reporting makes it easier to deny the crisis and harder to mobilize the public will to do anything about it.
Food insecurity, housing instability, and lack of access to hygiene are not side issues. They are the issue. They shape attendance, test scores, engagement, mental health, and educational outcomes.
What is needed now is a community to rally around those who are most vulnerable. This means showing up for students who are often left behind or in communities where need is growing. It means showing up with the love of God even more.
It means recognizing that schools, people, and communities cannot survive alone. It means standing with families who are doing all they can but still do not have enough. When we rally around the vulnerable, we make it clear that no person, community, or student should be left to navigate poverty by themselves.
What is needed now is a deeper commitment to create more goodness in the world. That goodness may look like a stocked closet, a meal, a shower, volunteering with an organization, a ride to school, or a kind word that tells a child, a person, or an educator doing all they can to fight for the futures of students, “You matter.”
And finally, what is needed now is the conviction to remind those on the margins of society that they are still worthy and that they still matter. They matter even when funding disappears. They matter even when the statistics are silenced. They matter even when the world turns away.
Our calling is to make sure their stories and humanity are never erased.
DisruptED Tour
Over the past two weeks, I had the opportunity to travel to both Chicago and Dallas, Texas to speak with educators, leaders, and community members about the urgency of the work we must do to support students and families struggling with poverty and homelessness.
While in Dallas, I also had the chance to sit down with Dr. Tony Evans and share my story and work on his Unbound podcast.
I’m grateful to share that I’ll be doing my next book signing in Atlanta at Scholar & Scribe on October 11th, and then heading to Louisville, KY on the 13th to talk about education and what it means to show up and serve communities facing homelessness, poverty, and need.
If you’re looking for a way to get involved:
Donate to Zion’s Closet and every item goes straight to students and helps us serve hundreds of children in a single school.
Volunteer by signing up to serve with Love Beyond Walls if you are in Atlanta.
Order the book and share it with someone who cares about students (Available Now).
And if nothing else—send prayers and positivity as we continue to do this work.
Book Dr. Lester to Speak [HERE]
Listen to the Imgaine Dignity Podcast [HERE]
U.S. Department of Agriculture. 2025. “USDA Terminates Redundant Food Insecurity Survey.” Press release, September 20, 2025. https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/09/20/usda-terminates-redundant-food-insecurity-survey.
So difficult to believe in supposedly one of the wealthiest countries in the world so some say, and this divide between the haves and have nots seems to continue to get larger. Heartbreaking really, and a gov shut down over continued healthcare to say the least. Back ass ward priorities and policies imo there is no excuse for such deprivation this country does better when we all do better. 💕
I work with shelters and missions and have heart for children and parents who are often children themselves. I pray for our hearts and priorities that as a society, we look up and out for others and support those living this and those trying to make a difference. Thank you for getting the word out about Zion's Closet.