The easiest volunteering you will do all year: Enter a code found on groceries you already purchase and a meal will be donated to a hungry child in America.

Almost 17 million children in the United States don’t get enough food.

That’s one in five kids who, when they go to their mom or dad and say “I’m hungry”, their parent may not be able to provide anything for them.

There are kids in this country who do not know where their next meal is coming from.

And while lucky parents like you and me dread grocery shopping (mainly because of the hassle), other parents simply don’t have a cent to spend at the store.

We can help hungry families feed their children! All we have to do is look for the red pushpin on specially marked packages of ConAgra Foods brands when we hit the grocery store.  After purchasing these foods simply locate the eight-digit code found on the package and enter the code at  www.facebook.com/ChildHungerEndsHere, www.ChildHungerEndsHere.com, or the handy wideget on the right hand side of my blog.

Here’s how that simple shopping and typing will help feed the hungry in our country: For every code entered by 8/31/13, ConAgra Foods will donate the monetary equivalent of one meal to Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. The goal is the donation of 3 million meals by the summer’s end!

Other easy-peasy ways you can contribute to the alleviation of child hunger:

• Filling out this quick Child Hunger Ends Survey. Your insights can be part of the hunger solution.

As the summer season craziness begins (camps! swim team! vacations! madness!), let’s all count our many blessings and do a little bit of free, armchair/laptop volunteerism for hungry kids.

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My family and I are crazy, elatedly excited to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration at Walt Disney World for our second year. The packing for this trip requires professional outfits, casual party wear, and clothing suitable for running around the parks with our kids. There is also a runDisney fun run for the attendees, Merida from BRAVE’s coronation for the entire family, swimming and water sliding at the Contemporary, and more amazing events.

As so many of us moms will be traveling for work and pleasure during the summer months, I thought I would share with you all my must-pack clothing and beauty items (you know, the essentials after a smart phone, laptop or tablet, business cards, chargers and cameras, and your children’s gear). You can watch the video of my latest Real Life Style with Jessica McFadden show for MomTV, or skip it and read on for more detailed packing and shopping recs.

1. Wedge Heeled Sandals

The wedge heel sandal is the most comfortable trend for devoted high heel wearers like myself. The wedge not only looks chic, it evenly distributes your body weight across the base of the shoe, as opposed to forcing all the balance onto the balls of your feet plus a spindly stiletto. My favorites in my closet are Charles by Charles David finds I score at DSW for less than $50. They are beautifully made and extremely comfortable (without looking like I’m wearing an overtly comfortable shoe.) I love a versatile neutral color such as tan or black to keep the shoe count down in the suitcase.

Other items that go well with a wedge:

• A neutral nail polish on your toes to lengthen the leg (and make any chips less obvious). My current fav is Sation’s Chocolate Chip Resistant.
• Leg moisturizer with a smidge of self-tanner like Nivea Sunkissed Beautiful Legs.

2. BB or CC Cream with SPF

The best beauty product I recommend for summer travel is a BB or CC cream with a good deal of SPF in it. A BB or CC cream will infuse your skin with more healing, rejuvenating nutrients than a regular old tinted moisturizer, and it will give you color-correction. Wear it alone for casual events such as the beach, pool, sight-seeing and running around with your kids. For career or dressier occasions, wear the BB cream beneath your favorite foundation. This will provide more coverage and a more natural finish as the cream acts as a primer.

Thanks to the CVS Beauty Club and celebrity beauty consultant Mickey Williams at Getting Gorgeous I was introduced to the Lumene Vitamin C+ Illuminating Anti-Age BB Cream with SPF 20. I am obsessed with its super light, natural finish and how it completely corrects imperfections. I also really like the Nuance Salma Hayek Renewed Radiance Brightening BB Cream SPF 30.

Other beauty products that are great for travel:

• Bobbi Brown Cheek + Lip Duo: One product, two uses.
• Enjoy Sulfate Free Rejuvenating Shampoo travel size packets won’t strip your hair color like the hotel freebies and they take up no room in your toiletry bag.

3. Day Dresses for Professional Events

For the Disney Social Media Moms full conference day on Friday, or any summer conferences or all-day work events, I recommend wearing a comfortable but on-trend day dress. Wearing simply one item makes getting dressed super easy!

The four dresses featured here are all priced at less than $100 and featured in the Amazon Dress Shop.

Other great summer professional wear choices:

• A bouclé jacket strikes the perfect balance between a cardigan and a blazer and works with pants, skirts, jeans and dresses.
• A good-quality maxi dress like Lilly Pulitzer’s Sloane style is great for relaxed evening events at conferences and vacation night dinners.

4. Vibrant Running Shoes

Running shoes do double duty when on vacation. They serve you for morning exercise like the #runDisney Fun Run at the Disney Social Media Moms Conference, as well as provide supportive footwear for sight-seeing with your family. I am loving the vibrant colors in the new styles! My all-time favorite running shoes — the crazy-comfortable Saucony Ignition 3′s – I recently found in neon pink at DSW for $30, more than half-off the price at a boutique running shoe shop.

Other sporty packing choices:

• I am a fan of the Champion Absolute Workout Bra. No bouncing, no need to double up, and it’s cheap enough at $11 that I can buy several.
• I find great deals on workout tanks and capris on the Lucy Activewear sale page and in-store clearance racks.

5. Retro-Inspired One-Piece Swim Suits

Summer vacationing with your kids makes wearing a swim suit non-negotiable. I have had great luck with the affordable, retro-inspired selection of suits at JCPenney, My Bettie-Page-ish black/white polka dot one-piece from last year (similar to the solid black one below) gets tons of compliments, flatters my figure, and offers plenty of support for worry-free hurtling down water slides with my kids. The last time I wore it a very chic woman asked me if it was Michael Kors, and I gleefully attested to its St. John’s Bay glory and $25 cost. I don’t think she was amused.

Other good swimsuit sources for the two-piece gals:

• Becca by Rebecca Virtue, found at Everything But Water, makes bikinis with great coverage for larger breasts.
• Petite hotties will look great in the DVF for Roxy bikinis.

More About Walt Disney World and Disney Social Media Moms:

• Best Rides at Walt Disney World (According to My Family)
• Vacation Dream Come True
• Disney Social Media Moms Speakers Provide Inspiration

Packing for family fun or work during the summer is tricky; you want to look your best, but you do not want to lug pounds of items you do not need.

For May’s Real Life Style LIVE show on Wednesday night May 1st from 8-8:30pm we will explore the science of packing for destinations with the kids and without ‘em.

Inspired by my and other bloggers’ upcoming trip to the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration at Walt Disney World, we will be discussing the balance between marvelous and minimalist packing, which items are diva-extra DON’Ts and which are double-duty DOs.

Watchers of the live show can also win gift cards to my favorite frugal fashionista vacation (packing) destinations: DSW, TJ Maxx and Old Navy!

Join us one hour earlier than usual (hey, the best beauty aid is free: SLEEP!) at 8pm-8:30pm for an outrageous online party.

How to Watch MomTV LIVE

Go to this link: http://momtv.com/pages/view/id/17

Follow the directions for logging in to MomTV — I find logging in via Facebook to be the fastest!

Come and watch the show if you love:

• New running shoes, flats, flipflops and strappy sandals!
• Colorful day dresses!
• Bright workout gear!
• Breezy skirts and dresses!
• Glamorous sunglasses!
• Chunky necklaces and cuff bracelets!
• Retro-inspired swim wear!
• Fanny packs! (Kidding…)

• Gift cards to DSW, TJ Maxx & Old Navy!!!!!

These giveaways are sponsored by ME, as I unequivocally, unsponsored-ly believe that these three stores are the BEST places a conference- or vacation-bound hot mama can shop to fill in the gaps in her styling’ summer suitcase!

Leave a comment letting me know you are coming to the show, and the item you ALWAYS pack in your summer getaway bag!

Eating only $1.50 a day is HARD. Over the past five months I have committed to living more healthfully, and I have purchased and prepared the highest quality food I have ever imbibed. I have lost weight, but rarely felt hungry as my pampered, overfed American body digested those roasted almonds, organic vegetables, sprouted-grain breads, green smoothies, free range chickens and more.

$1.50 a day means no organic foods that make your body sing. It means very little protein. It means no morning coffee, no evening glass of wine, no extras at all as those precious, minimal calories available for that low price must be saved for fuel. I never before realized that my morning Keurig-brewed Italian Roast, rice krispies with vanilla soy milk and banana were luxurious. But together they amount to more than $1.50, and thus, this week breakfast is only a banana (and not an organic one, at that.)

This week lunch will be simply rice or potatoes with a cheap vegetable, dinner will be rice and beans. And those beans? There are no cans of Amy’s this week. I had to purchase those beans dry, soak them, and cook them plainly without expensive seasonings or cold-pressed olive oil in order to stay within my below-the-poverty-line budget. (Please note that I am the only one in my family eating this way this week; my three children will eat as usual.)

Of course, I will be only eating #belowtheline. As my stomach rumbles and I drool as I make my children’s PB&J, I will be standing in my air-conditioned home, with running water I can customize to any temperature. I will be drinking only water, but that water will be fresh, filtered, fluorided. I will take a multivitamin, an iron supplement, and my medications. I will not want for anything, and my life will still be comfortable.

I am blessed to be able to feed my family healthy, hearty, nutrient-packed meals every single day. My son and two daughters never go to bed hungry, and they will never miss a day of school until they are old enough to make their own educational choices as adults.

However, 1 in 8 people go to bed hungry each night. Parents are forced to pull their children, especially their daughters, out of school in order to take jobs to feed the family. That is why I am an advocate for and a personal supporter of the World Food Program USA (WFP USA), a nonprofit organization committed to ending global hunger.

WFP USA’s work for the United Nations World Food Program and other hunger relief operations has proven that school meals — a guaranteed daily meal for children in poverty — is the greatest incentive for families to send and keep kids in school. This week WFP USA, and other U.S. charities that fight extreme poverty, have teamed up with the Global Poverty Project to Live Below the Line. This is a massive mobilization of  blessed, non-hungry people like myself experiencing what it is like to live like the 1.4 billion people who have no choice but to live below the poverty line every day.

I am a member of Team Mission List for the WFP, along with Morra Aarons-Mele, Dresden Schumaker, Kelly Wickham, Jessica Cohen, Heather Barmore and Jennifer Vento. We are living on just $1.50 a day for food and drink and raising awareness and funds. For every $250 we raise, 1,000 school meals will be provided to the children who need it most. You are welcome to donate to our team, or you can contribute by spreading the word by sharing this post with friends.

Thank you for reading this post about a cause that matters a great deal to me, assisting mothers and children in poverty.

I have partnered with The Mission List as a consultant and social media voice to help spread the word about WFPUSA. I have been compensated for my work in the past, but serving as a member of the The Mission List WFP Team for #BelowtheLine is unpaid and completely voluntary. All opinions are my own.