by Lucy Cabrera, Food Bank President and CEO

*The following updates Dr. Cabrera's statement of August 6.

Within the past week, both houses of Congress passed legislation that will rob the Food Stamp Program (SNAP) of billions of dollars in order to provide aid for Medicaid and education programs. A Senate vote to reduce food stamp benefits by billions more to pay for child nutrition programs now awaits approval by the House. It is regrettable that these votes are being touted as a victory.

There is no question that our health care, education and child nutrition programs need adequate funding. But our public health care system, public education system and food stamps all serve the same population, and by taking money away from any one of these programs to fund another, Congress is playing a shell game that low-income Americans will always lose.

In fact, Congress is undermining its own goals: a person will not remain in good health if he or she cannot afford a healthy diet; and a child who goes to school hungry will not learn. Low-income families struggling to put food on the table will only find themselves one step closer to a food pantry or soup kitchen door at a time when emergency food resources are already scarce.

Funding services at the expense of those most in need cannot be the answer. It is the worst example of robbing Peter to pay Paul. While it is imperative that Congress find funding for health care programs, public schools and nutrition assistance programs, this funding must not come from other programs and services low-income people rely on. Congress must rectify these misguided funding proposals immediately.

The Food Bank is working hard to take cuts to the Food Stamp Program off the table – and we need your help! Use this action alert to contact your Congress member today, and visit our advocacy page for further actions in support of New Yorkers in need.

by Triada Stampas

Albany's dysfunction is keeping food from people who desperately need it.

The Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) is a state-sponsored grant administered by the Department of Health that provides emergency food programs with funding for emergency food, operations support and equipment. State administrative functions have been so crippled that HPNAP expenses have not been reimbursed since April — causing a serious cash flow crisis for emergency food providers already struggling to keep up with increased need.* And without a finalized state budget for Fiscal Year 2011, new contracts cannot be approved. The result: the state supply of emergency food has been cut off.

The timing for this could not be worse, with demand for emergency food already at crisis levels because of the recession. Last year, nearly half of food pantries and soup kitchens had to turn people away for lack of food. In addition, when other services, like housing assistance and child care, are cut, low-income families are left with even less disposable income. Research shows these families will sacrifice food spending in order to keep a roof over their heads and cover other basic costs of living. In the long term, cuts to education and job training diminish their only available paths out of poverty, perpetuating a cycle of demand for emergency food.

The Governor, the State Senate and the Assembly must work together to end this crisis. Tell them that New Yorkers who struggle to put food on the table cannot go another day without HPNAP.

EMAIL ALBANY’S LEADERSHIP AND YOUR LEGISLATORS NOW!

* Fiscal Year 2010 HPNAP contracts covered the period from July 1, 2009 until June 30, 2010. Contracts for Fiscal Year 2011 were to have begun July 1, 2010.

by Ruthy Ashkenazi

Ruthy Ashkenazi at the West Side Campaign Against Hunger's client-choice food pantry

As a senior at the Jewish Theological Seminary, I have been interning at the West Side Campaign Against Hunger (WSCAH) — a Food Bank network member for more than 20 years — since September through our Fellowship in Jewish Social Entrepreneurship. I would like to share with you a little bit about my experience at WSCAH as guest blogger this week!

WSCAH is a supermarket-style, client-choice food pantry that offers food and social services to those in need. Each WSCAH customer can receive a pantry bag once a month, at which time they select needed items for three days of meals for their households. Since the start of the recession, the number of households depending on WSCAH is up 30 percent. In 2009 we provided food for 790,767 meals to 87,863 people.

At WSCAH, we believe that customers should be empowered to find solutions. Our social service counselors help people find jobs, register for food stamps, get health insurance, solve credit problems and find solutions to many other challenges.

WSCAH is also invested in teaching clients to be their own advocates. Several weeks ago, WSCAH received from the Food Bank For New York City a stack of stamped postcards addressed to legislators asking them to fight funding cuts to emergency food programs. As part of my internship, I had the job of working with customers to collect signatures. In some cases I translated the postcard to Spanish to allow Hispanic clients to read what it said and decide if they wanted to provide a signature. Without any trouble, and with enthusiasm from almost everybody I spoke to, I easily gained enough signatures to send 150 postcards to legislators from WSCAH clients. We are thankful to the Food Bank for providing us with the postcards and giving us the opportunity to engage our clients in the advocacy work on their behalf.

Learn more about the West Side Campaign Against Hunger on their website and blog, or by joining their Facebook fan page. Learn more about the Food Bank For New York City’s citywide food assistance network.

Plus, check out today's guest post from Daniel Buckley, Food Bank Senior Online Communications Manger, on the WSCAH blog!

by Carly Rothman

Food Bank For New York City and our network of food assistance programs have been on high alert since Mayor Bloomberg proposed cutting all funding to the city’s Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) — the second largest source of food for the people we serve.

The cut first appeared in January, in the city’s Contingency Plan for Proposed State Budget Reductions. Although it was later excluded from the Mayor’s Executive Budget, the budget process is not over. And with the number of New Yorkers needing emergency food at crisis levels, the status quo is not enough.

Funding for the EFAP program, which represents just 0.017 percent of the city budget, has not increased since 2003. Meanwhile, unemployment skyrocketed and food prices rose dramatically.

When food prices rise, the same dollar buys less food. For this reason, EFAP lost 20 percent of its buying power during a time when need reached crisis levels. Last year 93 percent of New York City soup kitchens and food pantries reported an increase in first-time clients — and nearly half were forced to turn people away after running out of food.

The situation would have been even worse without the generosity of private donors and an influx of federal stimulus funds, which sustained many soup kitchens and food pantries during those dark months. But this year the stimulus funding is gone, state budget proposals are calling to slash aid for emergency food and private food donations are down from last year’s levels. Meanwhile, unemployment is still high and more than 40 percent of New Yorkers continue to report difficulty affording food.

Bottom line: EFAP is providing less food at a time when more New Yorkers, including 1 in 5 children, need it most. Expanding EFAP by at least $3 million would regain buying power lost to inflation and help protect the thousands of New Yorkers who won’t have money for food this year.

Please join us in urging City Hall to lead the charge against local food poverty by securing sufficient funds for New Yorker’s basic food needs — contact our legislators today!

Read our NYC Hunger Experience 2009 report for further information about hunger in New York City, and visit our advocacy page for more actions that can make a difference for New Yorkers in need.

by Roxanne Henry

As the Community Outreach Manager for the Food Bank For New York City, I get to interact with our city’s unsung heroes.

Those heroes include people like José, a resident I met at a meeting of the Astoria Houses Residents’ Association at the beginning of the year. My team and I were there to talk about Universal School Meals —  specifically, the need to end the application process for school meals, thereby eliminating the stigma and red tape that now keep many eligible students from accessing needed meals.

Food Bank Community Outreach Intern Erica Santiago and Community Outreach Manager Roxanne Henry with more than 4,700 letters in support of Universal School Meals collected through the Food Bank's network of community organizers and food assistance programs

Earlier in the meeting, José said he wanted his community to be a better place for his three children. After the meeting, he and several other community members committed to getting signatures for petitions to send to legislators.

Their voices carried all the way to Washington, where our legislators will now have a chance to approve provisions for Universal School Meals as part of the plan for Child Nutrition Reauthorization recently approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee.

And Astoria isn’t the only place where impassioned New Yorkers urged legislators to support Universal School Meals. During the campaign, I met people passionate about this issue at the First Corinthian Baptist Church Food Pantry in West Harlem, with the Staten Island Hunger Task Force on the North Shore and at dozens of other community organizations across the city.

These are people motivated solely by a belief in the potential of their communities, and the desire to improve future generations’ access to needed resources. Their drive and commitment inspires me, and reminds me every day why I do the work that I do.

What inspires you?

by Carly Rothman

A key U.S. Senate Committee passed an important bill last week for Child Nutrition Reauthorization, the measure authorizing all of the federal school meal and child nutrition programs.

Called the "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act," the bill includes promising recommendations for Child Nutrition Reauthorization, including provisions for Universal School Meals and the expansion of direct certification for free school meals to children in foster care or on Medicaid.

And yet the bill would significantly underfund Child Nutrition Reauthorization, budgeting less than half the $10 billion called for by President Obama.

Adding insult to injury, the bill would offset this new funding by slashing $1.2 billion from the nutrition education component of the federal food stamp program (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP) over the next decade, handicapping nutrition education programs for low-income children, teens and adults nationwide.

With obesity and diet-related disease at a crisis level in many low-income neighborhoods, adequate school meals and nutrition education programs are vital to ensuring children receive both adequate nutrition and the knowledge and skills for moving toward a healthy lifestyle.

Underfunding the programs that feed our nation’s most high-need students guarantees that they will not be successful. And cannibalizing funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program–Education (SNAP-Ed) would undermine federal priorities to end child hunger by 2015, prevent childhood obesity and promote child nutrition — the very purpose of the bill itself.

Moreover, the bill would disproportionately hurt New York by freezing SNAP-Ed funding at its current levels, which currently provide New York with about ¼ the funding per person as California, despite the fact that it is home to nearly as many food stamp recipients.

In this respect, the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” robs Peter to pay Paul. Our legislators must adequately fund Child Nutrition Reauthorization without undermining programs that already serve the people they seek to help.

Visit our advocacy page to help send the message to our legislators in D.C.

by Carly Rothman

Some powerful New York officials are throwing their weight behind a proposed soda tax, arguing the added cost — an extra penny per ounce — will deter consumption, fight obesity and reduce health care costs.

The New York Times editorial board also supports the tax, saying it would help limit soda intake in low-income neighborhoods where diet-related diseases are particularly prevalent.

“Poorer people, who lack healthy food choices, too often overload on sugar-laden soft drinks,” read an editorial in the paper last week.

But the dearth of choices is just the point. The reason low-income consumers disproportionately suffer from obesity, diabetes and other diet-related diseases is that soft drinks, fast food and other foods and beverages high in added sugars and fats are cheaper and more readily available than healthier alternatives.

The soda tax might make the sugary drinks less appealing, but it would do nothing to lower the cost of healthy alternatives like milk or vitamin-rich juices, nor improve food access in neighborhoods without supermarkets or grocery stores.

In other words, the regressive soda tax supported by Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg would punish low-income families for buying soda without offering better alternatives. Meanwhile, the tax will cut into families’ limited food dollars, making it even harder to afford healthy foods like fruit, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products and legumes.

Both the Governor and Mayor note the tax will create an important revenue stream during the ongoing fiscal crisis. We are sensitive to this need — particularly since Mayor Bloomberg has threatened, in response to proposed state budget cuts, to eliminate all city funding for emergency food assistance.

And helping people make healthy diet choices is an important part of the Food Bank’s work. CookShop, our nutrition and health education program, teaches more than 15,000 New Yorkers of all ages about how to read food labels and make healthy, cost-effective food purchases. Our social marketing campaign, which reaches more than 100,000 low-income teens, urges them to “Change One Thing,” swapping junk food for healthy alternatives — and specifically encouraging a switch to water from sugary drinks.

While we applaud public officials’ desire to fight diet-related disease and steer consumers away from soda, we urge them to do so by expanding poor consumers’ options, not limiting them.

Existing programs like the FRESH (Food Retail Expansion to Support Health) initiative would provide incentives for supermarkets and grocery stores to open and expand in high-need neighborhoods — and require them to accept food stamps and WIC benefits to ensure they remain affordable and accessible to low-income consumers. New York’s Healthy Food/Healthy Communities Initiative would help finance store improvements to increase capacity for sales of fresh, healthy food.

Measures like these, which lift barriers, expand choice and empower individuals, should be the approach of all food policy — not programs that hurt the people they aim to help.

For more information, read our testimony before the State Senate Health Committee on the sugar-sweetened beverage tax.

Share your thoughts: what do you think about the impact of the soda tax on low-income New Yorkers?

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!