- Food stamp cuts could send more to Minn. food shelves, Associated Press, September 16, 2013, Crookston Times: “Officials and advocates for the needy in central Minnesota say cuts to the food stamp program could have harsh effects on many low-income families, while area food shelves and other groups say they expect to see an increase in the number of people they serve. The federal farm bill, which funds food stamps and nutrition programs, will expire at the end of the month if Congress fails to renew it. In July, the House passed a new version of the bill, but it didn’t include foot stamps and the bill is now stalled. An earlier, unsuccessful, House bill included more than $20 billion in cuts, while a Senate version passed in May proposes $4 billion in cuts…”
- Proposed food stamp cuts put most vulnerable at risk, By Gary Gately, September 17, 2013, Youth Today: “One in five Americans said they lacked enough money at times in the past year to buy the food they or their families needed, a new Gallup poll shows. Little wonder, then, that critics say a Republican bill to slash food stamp spending by $40 billion over the next 10 years would prove devastating to families struggling to put food on the table.“It’s awful; I don’t have enough words to express what a terrible, unprecedented slashing of the safety net this is,” Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, told Youth Today…”
Tag: Child hunger
Summer Food Programs
- In rural Tennessee, a new way to help hungry children: A bus turned bread truck, By Eli Saslow, July 6, 2013, Washington Post: “It was the first day of summer in a place where summers had become hazardous to a child’s health, so the school bus rolled out of the parking lot on its newest emergency route. It passed by the church steeples of downtown and curved into the blue hills of Appalachia. The highway became two lanes. The two lanes turned to red dirt and gravel. On the dashboard of the bus, the driver had posted an aphorism. ‘Hunger is hidden,’ it read, and this bus had been dispatched to find it…”
- Some schools must scramble to feed low-income kids during summer, By Dalina Castellanos, July 4, 2013, Los Angeles Times: “Mylene Guzman walked her three daughters through the gate at Hollingworth Elementary School in West Covina straight to the cafeteria. The girls weren’t late to summer school classes, nor were they participating in any of the Rowland Unified School District’s theater or art programs. The trio were there for lunch — pizza and cherry-flavored applesauce. Rowland Unified is participating in the federal Summer Food Service Program, which allows Guzman, who lives within the district’s boundaries, to feed her daughters for free…”
School Meals Programs – West Virginia
W.Va. tries to tackle childhood hunger and obesity through expanded school meals, Associated Press, April 22, 2013, Washington Post: “In West Virginia’s Mason County, children walk to the cafeteria together so they can start the day’s lessons with a side of whole grain waffles, cereal, fruit and milk. Here, among the coal mines and farms so familiar across Appalachia, the old adage that breakfast is the most important meal of the day is taken literally as a way to tackle two problems: improving achievement in a state that ranks 47th nationally in public education, according to an annual study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and improving health in a state where federal officials say 29 percent of high schoolers are obese…”