Ms. Rachel remembers the Walmart sneakers.
She was a kid, and her single mom was working at a daycare during the week, Pizza Hut on weekends, and going back to school at night. Money was tight. The sneakers weren’t name brand, and she got teased for it.
It’s a memory that’s clearly stuck with her—and one that’s shaping the work she’s doing now. Because when you have a platform that reaches millions of families, and you grew up understanding what it’s like to not have enough, you don’t stay silent when 1 in 5 kids is relying on SNAP benefits—benefits that are currently under threat.
I’ll be honest: talking to Ms. Rachel about this work was one of the highlights of my career. (I only got teary once, which I’m counting as a professional victory.) She’s not just a children’s educator—she’s genuinely, deeply committed to making sure every kid has what they need. Frankly, she’s a national treasure.
The question that started everything
There are some questions kids ask that stick with you, that reshape how you see the world. For Ms. Rachel, it was this one:
“I asked my mom, why don’t kids have all the food they need? Like, is there not enough food? I just really wanted to understand it because it didn’t make sense to me as a kid.”
Decades later, her voice still carries that same bewilderment.
And she’s right. It doesn’t make sense. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, kids are going hungry—not because there isn’t enough food, but because we’ve made a collective choice not to prioritize making sure every child has access to it.
Now Ms. Rachel’s own seven-year-old son, Thomas, is asking the same questions. “He’ll be like, I don’t understand why kids wouldn’t have the food they need,” she says.
The difference is, now she’s in a position to actually do something about it.
What she’s hearing from families right now
When you’re Ms. Rachel, you don’t just see the smiling faces in your videos—you see what’s happening behind the scenes. You get the messages from parents who are drowning.
“The cost of childcare is so overwhelming and the lack of childcare—affordable high quality childcare is so lacking,” she says. “And so if you’re paying so much for childcare, affording healthy food as well…”
She trails off, but we all know how that sentence ends. If you’re hemorrhaging money on childcare (or you’ve had to leave the workforce because you can’t afford it), grocery bills become impossible. Healthy food becomes a luxury. SNAP benefits become essential.
“I believe that every child has the right to healthy food,” Ms. Rachel says. “I’m really passionate about children’s rights. So I think every child in this country has a right to SNAP and healthcare as well.”
And here’s something crucial she wants parents to know: “So many more people than we think are using [SNAP] and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I struggled as a kid to afford things.”
There it is again—that Walmart sneakers memory. It’s why she’s so passionate about PBS, SNAP, healthcare—the safety nets that kept her family afloat.
The partnership putting resources where they’re needed most
Ms. Rachel isn’t just lending her name to organizations. She’s actually chosen them with the precision of someone who understands exactly what families need.
Last April, Ms. Rachel and Stonyfield Organic launched the “O is for Organic” program. Stonyfield made a $200,000 donation to two organizations Ms. Rachel helped identify, ones that align with their shared mission of supporting children’s health and well-being.
Room to Grow supports families from pregnancy through age three—the window Ms. Rachel knows is most crucial for development. (She has a master’s degree in early childhood education and 20 years of experience working with little ones.)
“When I got a master’s in music education, we all went around and said what age we were going to teach and they skipped me,” she laughs. “They were like, we all know you’re gonna work with little kids. I see every kid like I see my own child, and I want what’s best for them.”
Room to Grow provides a free shop where families can get everything they need for their child, plus help connecting to resources like SNAP. Stonyfield also donated two refrigerators stocked with Stonyfield Organic yogurt—enough to support 1,200 families.
“I think from having the Miss Rachel platform, I have seen that a lot of parents are super stressed, are not able to afford things,” she says. “And I know growing up with a single mom who worked a lot of jobs and went back to school, it is really tough out there.”
Then she says something that just about broke me: “A lot of moms are like, I don’t have a village, and they are the village, and I think that’s beautiful.”
No Kid Hungry addresses the issue that’s been on her heart since childhood. With reduced SNAP funding leaving more families struggling, the timing of this donation is critical.
“No child should be hungry and it really affects development and learning,” she says. “Kids need those nutrients and the brain development is so crucial when you’re a child.”
It’s the kind of partnership that makes sense—a brand committed to organic nutrition working with an educator who grew up understanding what it’s like when healthy food isn’t a given.
Teaching the next generation to care (without falling apart)
One of the most touching parts of our conversation was hearing how Ms. Rachel talks to Thomas about inequality and service—and how she does it without either lying or completely falling apart herself.
I had to ask her about this, because I’m an emotional person, and talking to kids about injustice seems impossibly hard. How do you explain that kids are going hungry without traumatizing them?
Her answer was refreshingly honest: “People are like, Miss Rachel, you’re the best parent ever. And like, no, I make mistakes, I struggle. I call my mom and get advice and say, hey, I messed up and I’m feeling guilty.”
She credits Dr. Becky Kennedy with teaching her how to be truthful while giving age-appropriate information. “You want to be truthful, but you also want to give the appropriate amount of information for their age. You don’t have to tell kids in detail what happened if they’re not developmentally ready for that.”
She also leans on Mr. Rogers (her hero): “We talk about how there are a lot of helpers and that love is stronger than anything else.”
In practice, this looks like talking to Thomas all the time about how many kids don’t have what they need and that that’s wrong. Sometimes he asks why she has to work so much. “And I’m like, you know, mommy’s so passionate about helping kids in need,” she says.
She’s teaching him that giving brings joy. He helps pick out toys for children who are homeless in their city. He knows that his mom’s job is to help kids who need it.
And yes, Thomas has seen her cry. “He does know some things, but I do shield him because he’s seven. But, you know, he’s seen me be emotional and I’ll say ‘Mommy feels so much for kids, because I see all kids, like I see you guys. I just want every child to thrive.’”
He’s seven years old and already trying to solve problems, coming up with ideas for how to help kids who need it—because his mom has taught him that every child deserves to have their needs met.
For her own mental health, she focuses on the helpers—on the people working to change things. It’s how she stays grounded enough to keep fighting. And it’s the message she passes on to Thomas: there are problems, yes, but there are also so many people working to fix them.
In a country as wealthy as ours, the fact that any child goes hungry should be unacceptable. Ms. Rachel knows this from lived experience—from Walmart sneakers and a mom working three jobs and watching a lot of PBS because childcare wasn’t an option.
And she’s using her massive platform to make sure the millions of families who follow her know they’re not alone in struggling, that there’s no shame in needing help, and that there are people fighting to make sure every kid has what they need.
“There’s so many people who are working to change things,” she says.
And now, she’s one of them.
