CALIFORNIA NEWS : ‘Hunger Wars’ Series Honored

Times urban affairs writer Sonia Nazario has been named the winner of the local reporting category of the annual George Polk journalism awards for her stories detailing hunger among public schoolchildren in Southern California suburbs.

Nazario’s series, “The Hunger Wars: Fighting for Food in Southern California,” profiled West Covina’s Edgewood Middle School as an example of the 193 Southern California schools that do not offer breakfast even though they have high proportions of needy children. After its publication, schools in West Covina were among dozens throughout the state that rushed to sign up for a government-sponsored breakfast program. The series also reported that the sharp growth of the nation’s salvage food industry was threatening the existence of food pantries.

The awards were established by Long Island University in New York in 1949 to honor the memory of Polk, a Columbia Broadcasting System correspondent who was killed the previous year while covering the Greek civil war.