Former U.S. Senator George McGovern, the man who ran against Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election, spoke July 17 to a Hunger Solutions Minnesota gathering in St. Paul about a longer, more-difficult struggle with a darker foe: world hunger.

——-The day before 25 children drowned chasing after candy bars that had fallen into the water.

“I made up my mind that year, that if I ever had the chance to do something about hunger, I would,” McGovern said.

McGovern went on to serve as the director of President John F. Kennedy’s Food for Peace program and as the chairman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs.

He told the crowd about how an old CBS documentary introduced him to problems poor families in the U.S. had feeding their children

“We immediately provided reduced-price lunches for students who didn’t have any money,” McGovern said.

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