by John Leggio

Former President Bill Clinton speaking at the Food Bank's 2009 Can-Do Awards Dinner; photo by Tran Dinh

Here at the Food Bank, we work to improve child nutrition because we know kids’ food choices can have lifelong health effects. Last week, at a press conference in Harlem, former President Bill Clinton said he learned that lesson the hard way.

After surgery for blocked arteries at NY Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center, President Clinton "weighed in" on the childhood obesity epidemic while speaking for the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

“The root cause of this was habits that I acquired in my childhood,” Mr. Clinton, who also had a quadruple bypass operation in 2004, said.

Mr. Clinton (who spoke at our 2009 Can-Do Awards Dinner) also gave a shout-out to First Lady Michelle Obama for her “Let’s Move” campaign, which will tackle the obesity epidemic by helping families make healthy food choices, improving the quality of school food, encouraging exercise and increasing food access.

We’re working to meet similar goals through programs like CookShop, which encourages the development of healthy diets among New York City students and their families, as well as community outreach and advocacy on issues like universal school meals.

With work like ours — and similar efforts from a dynamic duo like the former president and the current first lady — maybe we can protect more children from the outcomes of poor nutrition.

by Daniel Buckley

Every year, the Food Bank For New York City convenes our Annual Agency Conference — the largest gathering of our city’s hunger relief community — for workshops, a panel discussion, keynote speeches and more to strengthen our city’s response to hunger.

In addition to members of our food program network and other hunger-relief organizations throughout the five boroughs, leading legislators, policy makers and academics often attend, adding their voice and support to the struggle to end hunger. At this year’s conference – January 12, 2010 – the Food Bank was honored to provide a forum for NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer to present their views and goals on subjects ranging from food stamps to food production.

While we face drastic cuts to emergency food proposed by New York City and State, the appearance of four of our city’s most prominent leaders at the Food Bank’s conference shows that there is strong awareness and support of the needs of low-income New Yorkers in city government.

Their words give us hope for the future of our city – please take a moment to hear them for yourself:

by Carly Rothman

As we blogged earlier in the month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has threatened to eliminate funding for the city’s Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) in response to proposed cuts in overall state funding — a move that would slash a critical safety net for those who can’t afford to eat.

Now the Food Bank For New York City is taking action to help preserve emergency food assistance for New York City’s most vulnerable residents.

Our advocacy page contains up-to-date information on ways members of the public can help protect this vital program, including contact information for key elected officials and talking points people can use to help convince them that cutting funding for emergency food is the wrong way to plug the city’s budget gap.

For example, EFAP represents just 0.017 percent of the city budget — a tiny amount that supports hundreds of local food pantries and soup kitchens.

And even with EFAP funding, almost half the city's soup kitchens and food pantries had to turn hungry people away last year. With local unemployment now over 10 percent, the number of people needing help is expected to grow.

What are your reasons for protecting EFAP? Share your thoughts and help spread the word!
 

by Carly Rothman

The New York Budget pas de deux is in full swing — and both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor David Paterson are dangerously close to trampling on New York City’s most vulnerable.

It started with the governor’s budget proposal last month, in which he called for a $1.2 million reduction in the amount budgeted for the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP), a state program that provides funds to approximately 2,500 emergency food organizations statewide.

The governor’s proposal also called for a $1.3 billion drop in overall state funding for New York City. In response, last week Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a preliminary budget that outlined steps the city could take if the governor’s plan succeeds — a list that includes eliminating New York’s Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP), which provides millions of dollars in funding to about 500 local soup kitchens and food pantries each year.

“[It’s] just a possibility, but in the aggregate it has to be something like this,” the mayor said.

That’s scary talk in a city where roughly 40 percent of residents have difficulty affording food.

Last year alone, more than 90 percent of the city’s soup kitchens and food pantries saw a rise in demand. Even an influx of federal stimulus dollars couldn’t save many of our city’s emergency food providers from having to turn families away. And while stimulus funding will disappear this year, demand for emergency food isn’t expected to abate.

President Obama seems to recognize the need to provide for America’s most vulnerable. Despite his call to cap federal discretionary funding, the budget released by the president this week calls for an investment in Child Nutrition programs, and preserves funding for emergency food assistance.

Even with this federal aid, significant cuts to food assistance at the state and local level would be devastating to those who depend on these funds to eat.

“You have my commitment that we won’t let the quality of life decline now,” Mayor Bloomberg said in his budget address, calling on New York to “do more with less.”

But those who turn to soup kitchens and food pantries are already struggling to do more with less. They are falling behind on rent. They aren’t filling needed prescriptions. The food pantry and soup kitchen are often their last resort.

It’s bad enough that families are sacrificing basic needs to balance their budgets. New York City and State should not follow them down that desperate, dangerous road.

by Carly Rothman

In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama’s call to freeze federal discretionary spending raised alarms about the future of discretionary nutrition assistance programs, including certain components of The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). But the budget he released on Monday demonstrates his administration’s commitment to keeping food on the tables of America’s most vulnerable.

White House Photo, Pete Souza, 1/27/10

According to an analysis by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the president’s budget would preserve $246.5 million for commodity purchases under TEFAP, as well as another $50 million for transportation and distribution costs.

It also calls for an investment of $10 billion for Child Nutrition programs over the next decade and the strengthening of programs including SNAP/Food Stamps, school meals and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

The president has said he wants to end child hunger by 2015. The expansions he has proposed, particularly for child nutrition, are a promising step — especially in a budget that includes cuts — but achieving this goal will require far more.

Food Bank For New York City applauds President Obama for protecting these vital programs during a national fiscal crisis. It’s a good starting point for a strong Child Nutrition Reauthorization that includes Universal School Meals. And it sends the clear message that feeding people in need is especially important during hard times – a message we hope state and city leaders also hear and take to heart.

by Triada Stampas

Comparing America to a “cash-strapped family,” President Obama announced a tightening of the federal money belt in his State of the Union Address this week.

“We will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t,” he said. “Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.”

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security won’t be affected, the president said — but all discretionary government programs could find their way to the chopping block. And if The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is among the programs that land there, New York’s cash-strapped families will suffer.

Last year, TEFAP helped protect millions of struggling American families from hunger, distributing about $250 million in food to emergency food providers.

In New York City, 40 percent of families reported difficulty affording food last year. TEFAP — which received a major boost from the stimulus bill — was a key reason that figure was lower than the year before (48 percent).

Even with this temporarily increased help from TEFAP, more than half of our city’s food pantries and soup kitchens have reported running out of food or having to turn people away in recent years, unable to keep up with the dramatically increased demand.

Without TEFAP and other federal nutrition programs, even more families could face closed doors.

To be sure, the president’s speech wasn’t all doom and gloom for families in need.

His commitment to double the child care tax credit and to expand the tax credit for “those who start a nest egg” could free up families to spend more precious resources on food. The Food Bank’s Tax Assistance Program, which already helps thousands of New York City’s working poor access critical tax credits, will help many others achieve greater financial stability.

Low-income families could also achieve greater financial empowerment — the key to ending food poverty — through the president’s efforts to reduce the high cost of health care. In addition, First Lady Michelle Obama’s choice to spearhead the fight against childhood obesity could improve the health — and reduce health care costs — for millions of low-income children.

Although the president has said he hopes to end child hunger by 2015, that goal will never be reached without protecting critical food and nutrition programs. Tough choices lie ahead, but if we are to protect our country’s children and their struggling families, cutting these programs cannot be among them.

by Triada Stampas

Last year the Obama administration made promising gestures toward improving child nutrition in America, including a proposal to add $1 billion to child nutrition programs.

by Daniel Buckley

The Food Bank continually works to raise awareness and support for hunger relief through media, providing information, data and stories of those in need.

Here are some of the recent stories that have featured the Food Bank so far this holiday season:

THIS WEEK: Fox 5, “Good Day New York”
NY Weather Authority Mike Woods visits the Food Bank For New York City’s 90,000 square-foot Bronx warehouse to help get the word out about hunger in our city, interview President and CEO Lucy Cabrera and repack food for delivery to food pantries and soup kitchens.

WNYC, “The Brian Lehrer Show”
Áine Duggan, the Food Bank For New York City's Vice President of Research, Policy & Education, discusses hunger in New York and demand at food assistance programs across the city.

The New York Times, “City Room” blog, “Stimulus Funds Stock Pantries and Soup Kitchens”
Nationwide, food assistance programs received an extra $100 million in resources from the stimulus, on top of the $250 million that was originally budgeted. New York State’s financing soared 118 percent to $45 million, of which $28.5 million went to New York City.

NY1, “Food Bank For New York City Prepares Pre-Thanksgiving Day Feast”
With more than three million New Yorkers experiencing food shortages, the Food Bank’s Community Kitchen & Food Pantry of West Harlem prepared a Thanksgiving feast for those most in need.

Time/The Associated Press, “Food Banks Go High Tech to Feed the Hungry”
Food banks across the country are undergoing a high-tech revolution, adopting sophisticated databases, bar coding, GPS tracking, automated warehouses and other technologies used in the food industry that increasingly supplies their goods.

“Lola Berry New York,” Episode 4
Australian television personality Lola Berry drops by the Food Bank’s downtown office to interview Vice President of Policy, Research and Education Áine Duggan before subwaying it up to Harlem to speak with Jesse Taylor, the Senior Director of our Community Kitchen & Food Pantry of West Harlem.

by Ashley Baughman

Low-income workers are still far from able to afford basic necessities after the minimum wage increased this July from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour (New York State minimum wage increased from $7.15 per hour). This is especially true in New York City.

While the increase is a step in the right direction, research conducted by Columbia University’s National Center for Children in Poverty shows that a family of four in New York City needs an income of up to $65,000 or more per year to afford basic necessities such as rent, food, health care, child care and transportation. Two parents working full-time (40 hours per week) for a full year at minimum wage would earn just more than $30,000 before taxes. To make ends meet, families are often forced to go without food, prescriptions or doctor’s visits.

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.