KALAMAZOO, MI \u2014 Brian Koenigsknecht has been creating music since he was a child in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
While he\u2019s never made a full-time career out of it, he\u2019s used it throughout his life to spread messages he\u2019s passionate about. <\/p>\n
The Kalamazoo musician\u2019s 2017 release, \u201cFrom the Shallows to the Deep,\u201d helped him open up about his bipolar diagnosis<\/a> and spread mental health awareness. <\/p>\n His latest single, \u201cI\u2019m Hungry<\/a>,\u201d 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. <\/p>\n For Koenigsknecht, 50, the song also serves as the intersection of art and his day job as senior warehouse manager at Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n RELATED: <\/b>Will your Michigan student receive free meals this school year?<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cSo many people are surprised at how many kids have food insecurity in Kalamazoo County,\u201d Koenigsknecht said. \u201cWith the statistics this month, it\u2019s like 35,000 individuals in Kalamazoo County and 8,700 of those are children and teens. <\/p>\n \u201cThat number should absolutely be surprising to people. I want people to know that those children are victims here. They didn\u2019t do anything to be put in this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the stigmas Koenigsknecht is fighting is that parents are always at fault for their children being food insecure.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a stigma with hunger,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of people think that if someone\u2019s hungry, they\u2019re not working hard enough. That just isn\u2019t always the case. One of our recent surveys showed that a majority of our clients are either employed full time or disabled or retired.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s the number of children KLF serves that Koenigsknecht has a tough time shaking. <\/p>\n Prior to working for the nonprofit, the singer-songwriter worked as a paraprofessional at Angling Road Elementary School in Portage.<\/p>\n It was his time there that helped put a glaring face to childhood hunger in the community. <\/p>\n One of those faces would spark the inspiration for Koenigsknecht\u2019s latest song. <\/p>\n \u201cI worked the buses for two years at Angling,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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. <\/p>\n \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The children lived in a hotel, he said.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n So was keeping food on the table. <\/p>\n Those children, like many he saw, relied on the free breakfast and lunch provided by the school through the USDA.<\/p>\n \u201cIt broke my heart every time, seeing them get on the bus every Friday afternoon,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d worry about them all weekend. I didn\u2019t know the family well, but I could see it. And I saw that across multiple buses with multiple children. <\/p>\n \u201cBut that was the one group of kids that inspired this song.\u201d<\/p>\n That hunger is often invisible, something the song hits on right away with the lines: \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t know it \/ Looking at me \/ I\u2019m Hungry \/ But I used to be \/ Somebody who knew somebody \/ Looking at me \/ Going hungry.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n It also speaks to how a child\u2019s parents may seem like they don\u2019t care, but work overtime and follow all the rules. The only crime, Koenigsknecht writes, is that the kids never see them until the weekend.<\/p>\n But the child at the heart of the song doesn\u2019t like weekends or summertime. <\/p>\n \u201cHad 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\u2019t like the summertime,\u201d<\/i> he sings.<\/p>\n The song is Koenigsknecht\u2019s way of addressing the impossibility of the American dream for some. <\/p>\n \u201cYou can work so hard and follow all the rules and still, is the American Dream attainable?\u201d he said. \u201cThe American dream should at least include being fed, with all the food in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n As a paraprofessional, Koenigsknecht would constantly get calls about kids having behavioral issues or issues with grades. <\/p>\n Almost all the time, it was hunger-based, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s certainly my main mission now to make sure those kids still get fed,\u201d Koenigsknecht said.<\/p>\n With USDA funding cuts this summer, Koenigsknecht said he\u2019s already spending more on frozen proteins for after-school packs and to help feed children in the summer.<\/p>\n RELATED: <\/b>What the USDA\u2019s $1B cut means for Michigan food banks, schools, farms<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a scary time with lots of uncertainty,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n His song, which was released on Bandcamp<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Koenigsknecht chose $1 as the donation amount because KLF can provide three meals to one person for a day for that amount. That\u2019s due to the relationship Loaves & Fishes has with other organizations, bulk vendors, local farmers and financial donations. <\/p>\n \u201cI think feeding just one person at a time is similar to music for me because I\u2019ve always liked connecting organically, one person at a time,\u201d he said. \u201cI never had a huge following or went national, so the most important thing for me has always been just connecting.\u201d<\/p>\n Koenigsknecht will perform with Bront\u00eb Falls at 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 22 at the Clover Room, 1501 Fulford St., as part of this year\u2019s Sounds of the Zoo Music Festival<\/a>. Hannah Laine & Jess Ivey will open the free show with music starting at 6 p.m. <\/p>\n Want more Kalamazoo-area news? Bookmark <\/i>MLive\u2019s local Kalamazoo news page<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.mlive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KALAMAZOO, MI \u2014 Brian Koenigsknecht has been creating music since he was a child in the 1980s. While he\u2019s never made a full-time career out of it, he\u2019s used it throughout his life to spread messages he\u2019s passionate about. The Kalamazoo musician\u2019s 2017 release, \u201cFrom the Shallows to the Deep,\u201d helped him open up about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1991204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1991204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1991204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1991204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1991204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\u2018I\u2019m](\"https:\/\/www.mlive.com\/resizer\/v2\/D5LCOAKZSBC6FLAB2SRNXZHAWY.JPG?auth=f3032a448191d9ef3accf388581b0a7019466590213576ceb8629e50740cf5f7&width=1280&quality=90\")
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