Child hunger in Kalamazoo: Local musician’s new song tackles growing crisis

KALAMAZOO, MI — Brian Koenigsknecht has been creating music since he was a child in the 1980s.

While he’s never made a full-time career out of it, he’s used it throughout his life to spread messages he’s passionate about.

The Kalamazoo musician’s 2017 release, “From the Shallows to the Deep,” helped him open up about his bipolar diagnosis and spread mental health awareness.

His latest single, “I’m Hungry,” aims to not only draw attention to child hunger, but reduce the stigma around it, while also raising money to help feed children in the area.

For Koenigsknecht, 50, the song also serves as the intersection of art and his day job as senior warehouse manager at Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes.

The pantry provides groceries to an average of 850 people per day and distributes food to more than 95 locations, including schools that provide meals and after-school packs, he said.

There is a major concern, he said, that if free breakfasts and lunches cease at area schools at the end of September due to legislative infighting in Lansing, that need will get worse.

RELATED: Will your Michigan student receive free meals this school year?

“So many people are surprised at how many kids have food insecurity in Kalamazoo County,” Koenigsknecht said. “With the statistics this month, it’s like 35,000 individuals in Kalamazoo County and 8,700 of those are children and teens.

“That number should absolutely be surprising to people. I want people to know that those children are victims here. They didn’t do anything to be put in this situation.”

One of the stigmas Koenigsknecht is fighting is that parents are always at fault for their children being food insecure.

“There is a stigma with hunger,” he said. “A lot of people think that if someone’s hungry, they’re not working hard enough. That just isn’t always the case. One of our recent surveys showed that a majority of our clients are either employed full time or disabled or retired.”

It’s the number of children KLF serves that Koenigsknecht has a tough time shaking.

Prior to working for the nonprofit, the singer-songwriter worked as a paraprofessional at Angling Road Elementary School in Portage.

It was his time there that helped put a glaring face to childhood hunger in the community.

One of those faces would spark the inspiration for Koenigsknecht’s latest song.

“I worked the buses for two years at Angling,” he said. “I would stand out and watch these kids get off the bus every day, and a lot of them would get off and run straight to the cafeteria for a free breakfast.

“There was this one young girl … and she had a younger brother and sister, and they would come off the bus and they would be dressed well, smiling and happy, but the older girl, she just looked so rough and so tired.”

The children lived in a hotel, he said.

Their parents worked, but with the high cost of rent at the hotel and the lack of affordable housing in the area, saving to move somewhere else was a challenge.

So was keeping food on the table.

Those children, like many he saw, relied on the free breakfast and lunch provided by the school through the USDA.

“It broke my heart every time, seeing them get on the bus every Friday afternoon,” he said. “I’d worry about them all weekend. I didn’t know the family well, but I could see it. And I saw that across multiple buses with multiple children.

“But that was the one group of kids that inspired this song.”

That hunger is often invisible, something the song hits on right away with the lines: “You wouldn’t know it / Looking at me / I’m Hungry / But I used to be / Somebody who knew somebody / Looking at me / Going hungry.”

It also speaks to how a child’s parents may seem like they don’t care, but work overtime and follow all the rules. The only crime, Koenigsknecht writes, is that the kids never see them until the weekend.

But the child at the heart of the song doesn’t like weekends or summertime.

“Had a real good / Mother and father / Who dressed me up real nice / Now I get my sister, my brother / Myself up on the bus / Just in time to eat twice / We get to eat twice / Until the summertime / I don’t like the summertime,” he sings.

The song is Koenigsknecht’s way of addressing the impossibility of the American dream for some.

“You can work so hard and follow all the rules and still, is the American Dream attainable?” he said. “The American dream should at least include being fed, with all the food in this country.”

As a paraprofessional, Koenigsknecht would constantly get calls about kids having behavioral issues or issues with grades.

Almost all the time, it was hunger-based, he said.

“It’s certainly my main mission now to make sure those kids still get fed,” Koenigsknecht said.

With USDA funding cuts this summer, Koenigsknecht said he’s already spending more on frozen proteins for after-school packs and to help feed children in the summer.

RELATED: What the USDA’s $1B cut means for Michigan food banks, schools, farms

“It’s just a scary time with lots of uncertainty,” he said. “I’ve already seen this week numbers climbing in school pantries, as well as demand for after-school and weekend packs. The numbers are just going to keep rising.”

His song, which was released on Bandcamp Aug. 25, can be downloaded for $1.15, with $1 of every download going to KLF and the rest going to Bandcamp. People can also donate a higher amount through Bandcamp or donate directly to KLF at kzoolf.org.

Koenigsknecht chose $1 as the donation amount because KLF can provide three meals to one person for a day for that amount. That’s due to the relationship Loaves & Fishes has with other organizations, bulk vendors, local farmers and financial donations.

“I think feeding just one person at a time is similar to music for me because I’ve always liked connecting organically, one person at a time,” he said. “I never had a huge following or went national, so the most important thing for me has always been just connecting.”

Koenigsknecht will perform with Brontë Falls at 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 22 at the Clover Room, 1501 Fulford St., as part of this year’s Sounds of the Zoo Music Festival. Hannah Laine & Jess Ivey will open the free show with music starting at 6 p.m.

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