By Triada Stampas

I was in Washington, DC a couple weeks ago at a national anti-hunger policy conference organized by the Food Research and Action Center and Feeding America. Recently confirmed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack addressed us, reaffirming President Obama's commitment to end child hunger by 2015. A follower of ours on Twitter recently asked what we're doing to help make that happen — fair question. Here's our answer:

One out of five children in our city relies on emergency food. This is the food we distribute to almost 800 food pantries and soup kitchens throughout the city — helping to meet the immediate needs of children and families. The Food Bank also provides food and other programming through our Children’s Programs.

With a problem so large, and so serious, New York City’s children need all the help they can get. That is why the Food Bank works with government officials and our network of emergency food programs to make sure every eligible child in our city is able to participate in the child nutrition programs available to them — including government programs such as the school lunch and breakfast programs, the summer meals program, and WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children). The potential reach of these programs is significant – more than one in four children throughout the five boroughs is living in poverty. The Food Bank raises awareness about these programs throughout the city and advocates for making them as simple and easy to access as possible to maximize their impact. (I will get into more specifics on this in forthcoming posts, so stay tuned…)

This year, the federal legislation that created these programs is up for reauthorization by Congress — which brought me to DC. One of the things I did there is meet with our senators and representatives in Congress to make sure they know what an incredible opportunity is ahead of them – no child in our city should ever have to skip meals or spend their days hungry, and a strong Child Nutrition Reauthorization can help make sure they never do. Everyone I met with was supportive, so it’s now a matter of making sure they stay engaged on this issue – which will be part of my job over the next several months.

Two final, brief notes:
Approximately 40 percent of food stamp recipients in New York State are children. Our work to expand access to the Food Stamp Program (recently renamed SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) helps thousands of families put food on the table. And because the federal government funds all of these programs, they have the added benefit of providing a significant economic boost to our city — supporting jobs in schools and local businesses and easing pressure on household budgets so they can afford other necessities.