The National League of Cities (NLC) has launched its second round of their Cities Combating Hunger through Afterschool and Summer Meal Programs (CHAMPS) initiative by selecting 21 cities to participate in two regional Leadership Academies that will help them leverage federal funding to reduce childhood hunger. The city of Rochester has been selected as one of the cities under this CHAMPS initiative, designed to help the city increase the number of children receiving healthy meals through the Afterschool Meal Program and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). NLC's Institute for Youth, Education, and Families and the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) have partnered on this initiative through a generous grant from the Walmart Foundation.
Visit NLC’s announcement of the project to learn more.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
School Breakfast to School Wellness Partnership Grant Opportunities
With generous funding from Kellogg's Corporate Citizenship Fund, Action for Healthy Kids is pleased to release its School Breakfast to School Wellness Partnership grant opportunities for the 2013-2014 school year. School districts will be awarded funds that will range from $12,600 to $25,200 with significant in-kind contributions from Action for Healthy Kids in the form of people, programs, and school nutrition expertise. Action For Healthy Kids will provide districts with management expertise and support to develop strong alternative and universal breakfast programs to increase breakfast participation in 10-20 schools district-wide. Letters of intent are due June 21, 2013.
Click here for more information.
Click here for more information.
Monday, May 20, 2013
SNAP + SNAP ED = Smart Policy
This week, Congressional committees voted to cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) and SNAP-Education, which funds programs that help families access healthy food and get the most nutrition from their limited dollars. This is short-sighted and impractical.
The powerful effect that SNAP and SNAP-Ed can have on a family is a story best told not by me but by a woman who has been a part of our No Kid Hungry campaign, Lareese.
Lareese is a busy mother of two. She's trained as a dental assistant, but on-and-off employment in her small town has sometimes made it tough to make ends meet. Her meager income has made it hard to feed her family, but the $1.80 she gets per person per meal through SNAP benefits has made it possible to put food on the table.
She took a six-week cooking and nutrition education course through No Kid Hungry's Cooking Matters, the type of program that SNAP-Ed supports. In Cooking Matters, a chef taught Lareese to cut up a whole chicken, to bake instead of fry and shared ways to stretch ingredients. A nutritionist taught her to read food labels at the store, to watch out for added sugar and sodium, and to find healthier items even when eating out. Each week, Lareese left empowered with a new set of skills. She also left with a bag of groceries, to practice making the healthy meals taught in class.
Dinnertime looks very different at Lareese's house now. Her SNAP benefits last longer than they did before the course - up to a week and a half longer sometimes. She's stretching her dollars primarily by shopping smarter - writing a list, comparing unit prices, and reading food labels. 'This little thing is three gulps and you've had 25 grams of sugar!' Lareese exclaimed about an 8 oz. bottle of mango soda back when we tagged along on a grocery trip.
This is just one example of how nutrition education can make a real difference in the lives of real Americans trying to do the best for their families. Yet Congress today is looking to slash funding for SNAP and SNAP education.
Smart fiscal policy today must look to tomorrow. Ensuring our kids get the healthy food they need through programs like SNAP is a smart investment. Research shows kids who get the healthy food they need are likely to have fewer health problems, do better in school and grow up stronger. Investing in programs like SNAP and SNAP-Ed today will off-set enormous expenses in health-care costs, educational failures and lost wages in the future.
These programs work in unison: parents like Lareese need both benefits to put food on the table, and education to maximize those benefits in a healthy way.
Responsible, proactive policy starts with protecting SNAP. Join me in urging Congress to protect funding for this important program.
The powerful effect that SNAP and SNAP-Ed can have on a family is a story best told not by me but by a woman who has been a part of our No Kid Hungry campaign, Lareese.
Lareese is a busy mother of two. She's trained as a dental assistant, but on-and-off employment in her small town has sometimes made it tough to make ends meet. Her meager income has made it hard to feed her family, but the $1.80 she gets per person per meal through SNAP benefits has made it possible to put food on the table.
She took a six-week cooking and nutrition education course through No Kid Hungry's Cooking Matters, the type of program that SNAP-Ed supports. In Cooking Matters, a chef taught Lareese to cut up a whole chicken, to bake instead of fry and shared ways to stretch ingredients. A nutritionist taught her to read food labels at the store, to watch out for added sugar and sodium, and to find healthier items even when eating out. Each week, Lareese left empowered with a new set of skills. She also left with a bag of groceries, to practice making the healthy meals taught in class.
Dinnertime looks very different at Lareese's house now. Her SNAP benefits last longer than they did before the course - up to a week and a half longer sometimes. She's stretching her dollars primarily by shopping smarter - writing a list, comparing unit prices, and reading food labels. 'This little thing is three gulps and you've had 25 grams of sugar!' Lareese exclaimed about an 8 oz. bottle of mango soda back when we tagged along on a grocery trip.
This is just one example of how nutrition education can make a real difference in the lives of real Americans trying to do the best for their families. Yet Congress today is looking to slash funding for SNAP and SNAP education.
Smart fiscal policy today must look to tomorrow. Ensuring our kids get the healthy food they need through programs like SNAP is a smart investment. Research shows kids who get the healthy food they need are likely to have fewer health problems, do better in school and grow up stronger. Investing in programs like SNAP and SNAP-Ed today will off-set enormous expenses in health-care costs, educational failures and lost wages in the future.
These programs work in unison: parents like Lareese need both benefits to put food on the table, and education to maximize those benefits in a healthy way.
Responsible, proactive policy starts with protecting SNAP. Join me in urging Congress to protect funding for this important program.
Follow Billy Shore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billshore
Thursday, May 16, 2013
No Time to Cut Food Stamps
The New York Times Editorial
Published May 13, 2013
“Families who are living in poverty did not spend this nation into debt,” says Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, “and we should not be trying to balance the budget on their backs.” That humane principle will guide the New York Democrat as she seeks to persuade colleagues to resist a proposed $4.1 billion cut in food stamps in an omnibus farm bill heading toward Senate agriculture committee vote.
The cut, spread over 10 years, is a lot less than the devastating $20 billion cut over the next decade the Republican-controlled House Agriculture Committee is considering. Yet food stamps are already scheduled to take a hit when increases approved in the 2009 economic recovery act expire in November. The $4.1 billion reduction would result in an average cut of $90 per month for nearly 500,000 households nationwide, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.
It is especially galling that members of committee, led by Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat of Michigan, seem determined to hurt struggling families and children while perpetuating unnecessary benefits for big agriculture. Ms. Gillibrand would pay for restoring the trims to food benefits by lowering the subsidies to highly profitable crop insurance companies based overseas.
Some lawmakers complain that parts of the current law providing for enhanced food stamp benefits could be manipulated by states. But the program has very little fraud and, in any case, there is no justification for reducing benefits over all. Allowing cuts in food stamps is the wrong position fiscally and morally, and a terrible strategy for beginning negotiations with the House.
View the Editorial
Published May 13, 2013
“Families who are living in poverty did not spend this nation into debt,” says Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, “and we should not be trying to balance the budget on their backs.” That humane principle will guide the New York Democrat as she seeks to persuade colleagues to resist a proposed $4.1 billion cut in food stamps in an omnibus farm bill heading toward Senate agriculture committee vote.
The cut, spread over 10 years, is a lot less than the devastating $20 billion cut over the next decade the Republican-controlled House Agriculture Committee is considering. Yet food stamps are already scheduled to take a hit when increases approved in the 2009 economic recovery act expire in November. The $4.1 billion reduction would result in an average cut of $90 per month for nearly 500,000 households nationwide, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.
It is especially galling that members of committee, led by Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat of Michigan, seem determined to hurt struggling families and children while perpetuating unnecessary benefits for big agriculture. Ms. Gillibrand would pay for restoring the trims to food benefits by lowering the subsidies to highly profitable crop insurance companies based overseas.
Some lawmakers complain that parts of the current law providing for enhanced food stamp benefits could be manipulated by states. But the program has very little fraud and, in any case, there is no justification for reducing benefits over all. Allowing cuts in food stamps is the wrong position fiscally and morally, and a terrible strategy for beginning negotiations with the House.
View the Editorial
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