In 2012, 20 young children and six staff members were shot and killed at a school in Newtown, Connecticut. Since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, over 400 people have been shot in schools, including the 17 lives recently lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Florida. In the short history of FoodCorps’ work, our staff and service members have experienced lock-downs, counseled students through active shooter drills, and seen members of the communities we serve lost to senseless violence.

FoodCorps stands with all those who are mobilizing to seek solutions to the crisis of gun violence in our nation’s schools. We see and feel the toll it is taking on students, both those with lived experience of gun violence and those who now live under the threat of that violence, and we believe with deep conviction that the nation must take action to make this violence stop. America’s children deserve their schools to be safe places––oases of health and learning where every student feels secure and supported, and where hatred and violence have no place.

FoodCorps admires and applauds the students, teachers, school leaders, and parents who are seeking action from the policymakers we count on to protect us. Student safety is a foundational part of the future FoodCorps wishes to see in the world, and common-sense gun safety legislation––legislation that puts fewer guns into schools rather than more of them––is an important step toward keeping our children safe.