by Triada Stampas

Photo courtesy the Office of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator and a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, has just garnered a spot on the Subcommittee on Hunger, Nutrition and Family Farms. This subcommittee assignment puts her front and center on food poverty issues at the federal level — including this year’s pending Child Nutrition Reauthorization. Food Bank For New York City has already been working with Senator Gillibrand and her staff to let them know about the issues of interest to low-income New Yorkers — and now Sen. Gillibrand will have an opportunity to make sure those interests are heard in Washington.

Every five years, Congress must reassess the federal Child Nutrition programs — which include School Breakfast and Lunch, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and Summer Meals — and pass new legislation to keep them going for another five years.

The reauthorization process is also an opportunity to improve access to the programs and make them more efficient and effective. A key priority of the Food Bank in this year’s Child Nutrition Reauthorization is universal school meals without individual applications. Instead of requiring applications from each individual child — a process that is taxing on schools’ resources as well as on families — the federal government can use existing demographic data (like Census information, Food Stamp enrollment, etc.) to determine need within a school’s population. And, in exchange, children can receive school meals free of cost and unnecessary hassle. By using existing data sources this way, school systems will be able to eliminate a practice that puts attention on and stigmatizes the children who need free meals and needlessly drains educational resources. It’s a win-win.