Federal Budget Cutting and Hunger in Vermont

A popular meme these days is “budget cutting.” In Washington, D.C. it seem like they talk about nothing else. I have prepared many budgets over the past 10 years, and had to make some very hard choices, including for the past few years here at the Foodbank. As the steward of millions in donations the Vermont Foodbank has an obligation to know where every dollar goes, and to ensure that it contributes to the mission of seeing that no one in Vermont goes hungry. That is why when budgeting for the Foodbank we are always focused on the achieving the mission, the long-term financial health of the organization and effectively executing our programs. But the current budget cutting meme doesn’t seem to leave much room thoughtful reflection.

As I write this, budget cutting proposals in congress focus on 12% of the federal budget for all the cuts, and includes large reductions that will directly affect Vermont’s hungry. There are proposed reductions in SNAP benefits (called 3 Squares Vermont here and formerly food stamps) that will drive more people to food shelves and meal sites as their benefits run out sooner in the month. Community Service Block Grants are proposed to be cut in half. These federal grants support Vermont’s 5 community action agencies, 4 of which operate one or more food shelves in Vermont, including the states largest. The cuts could cause our community action agencies to scale back or even close the food shelf operations because they are largely funded with the flexible block grant funding. We are also facing a loss of USDA food and funds to food banks. Loss of all this support will leave a big whole in our communities. How big?

The charitable emergency food network that we run together cannot make up for the loss of strong federal safety net programs. The 3 Squares VT program distributed almost $11 million in benefits in December, 2010. Annualized, that’s more than $130 million last year. Over 90% of those benefits are spent locally within 30 days. Any reduction in that $130 million a year in federal food assistance transfers the burden to the charitable food system. In contrast, the Vermont Foodbank distributed more than $12 million dollars’ worth of food during all of 2010. Try as we might, we can’t possibly fill that gap.

And speaking of gaps, a recent study released by Feeding America, a national organization of over 200 food banks, looked at the “meal gap” in every county in the United States. It measures how many meals it will take so that everyone reports having enough food to eat for the whole family. According to the study, in Vermont over 82,000 of our neighbors are missing 13,745,000 meals per year. We would need to provide $41,440,980,00 worth of food to fill that gap. That would mean more than tripling our food distribution.

This country’s future economic prosperity depends on our people. People who are worried about how they will feed their families tomorrow cannot focus on being good employees, serving their country, being active in their communities or starting a business. A country looking to a strong future cannot afford to let its people go hungry and fall into despair and poverty.

That’s why I am asking for you to join with me and let our elected representatives, state and national leaders know that hunger is unacceptable in our communities, our state and our country.

Should we restrict what people buy with SNAP benefits?

This is an editorial written recently by me and Marissa Parisi, Executive Director of Hunger Free Vermont that has appeared in the local press. I feel that this is an important topic, and one that can't be discussed too many times.

A recently-introduced resolution in the Vermont House has many of us in the anti-hunger community concerned about peoples’ understanding of the effectiveness and importance the 3SquaresVT program (nationally called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and formerly Food Stamps). 3SquaresVT currently serves over 90,000 of our neighbors – that is more than 1 in 7 Vermont households. Proponents suggest that 3SquaresVT dollars are “all too often” spent on foods with limited nutritional values. This perception is often backed up by anecdotes about how someone was seen buying food that doesn’t seem nutritious with their benefits. The reaction can be visceral, even if the intentions are good. But good public policy is not made based on anecdotes or good intentions; it is made based on facts. There is no research-based evidence that restricting what our neighbors can purchase with government benefits leads to improved health outcomes down the road. Research does show that 3SquaresVT participants make similar food choices to non-participants at all income levels. In fact, public health officials and physicians across the country support increasing participation in 3SquaresVT as an overall obesity-prevention strategy. Moreover, studies by both the USDA and Children’s Health Watch have shown that chronic hunger and food insecurity have much greater impacts on the health of our citizens than poor nutritional choices. Hunger and malnutrition increases the risk of poor health, obesity, academic failure, and developmental delays. 3SquaresVT decreases poor health and hospitalization among participants, especially among young children and elders. The food choices we all make are influenced by many things, but we all are susceptible to constant advertising, often for non-nutritious foods. We are fortunate because Vermont is way out front when it comes to the availability of local food and making healthy eating easier. We believe the Vermont way to encourage healthful food choices for our neighbors receiving 3SquaresVT is to support 3SquaresVT usage at more farmers’ markets and for CSA shares, offering incentives for fruit and vegetable purchases, enhancing nutrition education across the state and the nation, and improving benefit levels so people can afford more healthful foods. These changes would save scarce health care dollars and bring more federal dollars to our state and into the pockets of our farmers and food producers.

say sNO to hunger!

Vermont’s ski industry has a long-standing tradition of fostering community. Believe it or not, our ski industry creates more than 33,000 jobs each year . In light of this, it seems appropriate that several Vermont communities are built around their mountain resorts.

It is estimated that skiers and riders generate nearly $1.5 billion in economic activity annually —not a small sum for a state like Vermont. This number doesn’t account for the increase in property taxes and income from the skiers and riders that come to Vermont on a ski vacation, fall in love with its natural beauty and decide to make it home.

In the same way that Vermonters rally around their favorite winter sport, our ski resorts look out for our communities, and work to improve the quality of life for their employees and their loyal skiers and riders.

This month, Pico Mountain Resort is caring for their community by telling skiers and riders to say sNO to hunger. For every donation of $15 or more made to the Vermont Foodbank between March 1st and March 18th, Pico Mountain Resort will offer the donor a $20 lift ticket discount. Anyone who makes a donation of $100 or more will receive a free lift ticket. All donations should be made online here.

The folks at Pico know that 1 out of every 7 Vermonters struggles with hunger. They know that 25,000 Vermont children live in food-insecure homes. Pico is looking out for their community by taking a stand against the injustice of hunger. They seek to improve the quality of life for all Vermonters by making sure that those of us who have little are—at the very least—fed.

Join Pico Mountain Resort and the Vermont Foodbank and say sNO to hunger.

Click here to make your donation now, and please give generously.

I'll let you decide

This story last week on NPR http://www.npr.org/2011/01/13/132864584/high-demand-nutritional-dilemma-vex-food-banks#commentBlock talked about the issue of food banks distributing all that is donated, including candy and other food with minimal nutritional value. I think the story missed a main point: It is not up to food banks to be the nutrition gatekeepers for our clients. We are not here to "do favors." Everyone deserves the dignity of a meal of their choosing, without a charitable gatekeeper.

We all need to learn to eat better and to understand the importance of good nutrition. It is also a societal responsibility to provide information and education about good nutrition, cooking well, and eating well for everyone, not just one group or another. This country used to provide that guidance, but stopped in the 1970's when the government began backing away from more aggressive nutrition and good eating advocacy that began during WWII. The 70's also were the advent of increased food processing and aggressive marketing of “junk” food.

I don't believe it is appropriate to single out 1 in 7 of our neighbors for disparate treatment just because they need to ask for help. Walk in those shoes and think how you would feel, if you found yourself being denied a certain food (or candy) because a charity decided it wasn't good for you.

so much to say

Have you ever heard of wordle? Wordle is an online tool used to generate "world clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

The wordle above was generated from answers, by Foodbank staff and board, to the question: If you could tell a stranger (someone who doesn't know about the Foodbank) one thing about the Vermont Foodbank, what would you say?

And this is what we said.

Food, Food Revolution

It’s time for a food revolution!

I eat a healthy diet of fruit, vegetables, locally-raised meats and whole grains . . . sometimes. But you know, when I smell those hot crispy french fries or that warm gooey chocolate chip cookie it is almost impossible not to eat just one, and then it’s impossible to eat just one. There are actually scientific theories about why this happens, and how foods are “designed” to make this happen. A new book by Dr. David Kessler, former Commissioner of the federal Food and Drug Administration, lays out what happens to our brains when we smell those cookies. The smell, sight or thought of fat, salt and sugar-laden foods triggers brain chemicals that create a path to our reward centers. The signal doesn’t turn off until the cookies or fries are gone. Does this description trigger a familiar feeling in you? It sure does to me.

People without enough food to eat are just as susceptible to these biological forces, and just as inundated by the ubiquitous marketing and advertising telling us all that these foods will make us feel good, make us more popular and help us have fun. These high fat, salt and sugar foods, which often lack any real nutritional value, are what you find in the convenience stores and corner bodegas in low income neighborhoods across the country. These so-called “food deserts” also lack reasonable access to fresh fruits and vegetable, lean meat and whole grains. What we end up with is the puzzling situation of hungry, undernourished and obese citizens.

Our government spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year enabling a food system that is literally making us sick. For example, overproduction of corn and wheat as the result of national agricultural policy leads to extreme efforts to use it all – enter high-fructose corn syrup, modified food starch, xanthan gum, citric acid (which can be produced from corn), modified corn starch, natural flavoring, and on and on. Even the canned goods supplied to food banks nationwide by the USDA through various programs are layered with sugars and salt.

It is time to say “enough.” A start would be for the federal government to reduce or eliminate the salt and sugar used in processing the commodities distributed through various programs to schools and food banks. Yes it will taste different, but people can add their own salt and sugar if they wish. You can’t take it out if it’s already in.

Building a movement takes time and focus and hope. This one has already begun, and is building in scope and intensity. I expect it will take at least 20 years for real change to happen, but each small step takes us that much closer.

Hunger Action Month – Think Big, Start Small

It is possible to end hunger in this country.

The missing pieces of the puzzle are a wide recognition that hunger is a serious problem and an unconditional commitment to feed everyone. Fortunately, President Obama recognizes that hunger is a problem in this country. We need that same recognition from the Governors of all 50 states. The talking heads on television need to talk about hunger. Businesses need to let us know that hungry people are not ready to work. Colleges and universities need to make hunger awareness part of their curriculum. Our military needs to acknowledge that hungry Americans are not prepared to serve their country.

When everyone is aware of the damage hunger is doing to our country, we need to make the commitment to feed everyone. And it has to be unconditional. No judging who is deserving of food assistance. And I mean no judging. We seem to spend a lot of time judging people these days, whether it’s their political views, socioeconomic status, how they use their money (or don’t), what kind of car they drive, or what kind of music they listen to. This will take time, effort and persistence, driving towards a clear, understandable goal - but isn’t that what leaders are supposed to do?

Existing federal and state anti-hunger programs, like SNAP (formerly food stamps ) and WIC can ensure food security for everyone in this country if we stop the judging, and shift existing resources to the right places. I won’t get into the details here. Check out http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/03/dww_hunger.html for a deeper dive.

But we’re not all leaders in eliminating hunger, writing reports and making policy. Most of us just need to know what we can do today that is within our abilities and means. Enter Hunger Action Month. Each state participates by letting people know what they can do every day to move us toward a hunger-free America. You can take “The Pledge,” pick apples for donation to the Vermont Foodbank, have your book club read a book about hunger. In fact, there are “30 Ways in 30 Days” you can help. Visit the Vermont Foodbank at http://www.vtfoodbank.org/Events/HungerActionMonth.aspx to learn more.

It may seem like taking a pledge, reading a book or making a donation to the Vermont Foodbank won’t end hunger – and it most likely won’t – but if one thousand people did it we’d have a start, and if they each convinced a friend, and they each convinced a friend and so on, well, pretty soon we’d have a solution.