Inmates grow, gather veggies, make soup for hungry, By Julie Carr Smyth (AP), August 18, 2009, Detroit Free Press: “The nation’s food banks, struggling to meet demand in hard times, are turning to prison inmates for free labor to help feed the hungry. Several states are sending inmates into already harvested fields to scavenge millions of pounds of leftover potatoes, berries and other crops that otherwise would go to waste. Others are using prisoners to plant and harvest vegetables. ‘We’re in a situation where, without their help, the food banks absolutely could not accomplish all that they do,’ said Ross Fraser, a spokesman for Feeding America, a national association of food banks. The number of Americans who couldn’t afford food jumped 30% from December 2007 to December 2008, according to a survey by the group. Demand at some pantries have more than doubled, Fraser said, as job losses and wage cuts have strained family budgets…”
Day: August 19, 2009
School Lunch Programs
- Stars aligning on school lunches, By Kim Severson, August 18, 2009, New York Times: “Ann Cooper has made a career out of hammering on the poor quality of public school food. The School Nutrition Association, with 55,000 members, represents the people who prepare it. Imagine Ms. Cooper’s surprise when she was invited to the association’s upcoming conference to discuss the Lunch Box, a system she developed to help school districts wean themselves from packaged, heavily processed food and begin cooking mostly local food from scratch…”
- N.J. schools bag funds with free lunch, By Ashley Milne-Tyte, August 18, 2009, American Public Media: “New Jersey’s formula now works like this: the state provides about $9,700 to educate each child to meet academic standards. But poor students in poor districts can get an extra $5,000 on top of that. That’s where free lunch comes in…”