As a way to amplify and extend the film’s impact, Participant Media (the producers of A Place at the Table) has worked with national non-profit organizations such as Share Our Strength, Food Research & Action Center (FRAC), Bread for the World, and the Alliance to End Hunger, in addition to local non-profits to create a National Action Center online.

This first-of-its-kind national action database – built and managed by a coalition of expert partners – is designed to house the most important and effective actions and volunteer opportunities based on your location. From advocating to protect funding for SNAP (formerly food stamps), to raising awareness about school breakfast programs in your community, to volunteering at your local food bank – this database serves as a central hunger-free action hub for the public. Actions are organized in two major categories:

• National Action: These actions will drive federal policy change and are tied to national hunger alleviation policies.

• Local Action: These actions will highlight key advocacy and volunteer opportunities at the city, county or state level as well as volunteer and offline actions.

How Your Organization Can Be Involved

Do you have an advocacy day planned? A volunteer service opportunity? Need help with an upcoming event? If you are a 501(c)3, you can submit your actions to the Action Center, and the film and its extensive promotional campaign will let people in your community know about ways they can support your efforts. Here’s how it works:

• You create a profile for your organization and submit an action to the site

• Upon entering the site, visitors will enter their zip code and see actions around them, including any actions your organization enters

• The visitor will then decide which actions to take and if they would like their contact information to be available to the organization that entered the action

• Your organization can download contact information for anyone who has given permission

If you are interested in having your organization included in the Action Center, simply contact Sam Read at sam@aplaceathetable.com.  Sam will be happy to walk you through registering your organization with the Action Center and helping you enter actions for your organization.

Getting full engagement from groups like yours on this initiative is going to make a huge difference, and will also greatly increase the number of local action options people have to take on the site.  Needless to say, including opportunities for people to get involved with your organization in this database will also increase the visibility of your work and provide you with an additional source of volunteers and activists.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released a new food guide designed to help shoppers manage their grocery costs while reducing their exposure to toxic chemicals and rediscovering the savory pleasures of nutritious stews, soups and salads.

Check out EWG’s blog post announcing the guide, and consult the excellent online version of the guide.  A PDF version is also available both on EWG’s website and through our own resource library.

This film is part of an ongoing partnership between Food Network and Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign to end childhood hunger in America. “Hunger Hits Home” shows today’s face of hunger through the lives of three hardworking families struggling to make ends meet.

At the same time, the film highlights America’s hunger heroes who are hard at work on a solution, including a determined food pantry founder who makes the battle personal and an elementary school principal who refuses to let his students go hungry. It documents the hard work of government officials and non-profit leaders who are moving mountains to mobilize necessary resources. And it outlines the path for you to join the fight.

The documentary also profiles hunger heroes who are involved in the No Kid Hungry campaign, like Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who shares: “Our nation should be able to feed our children and if we can’t do that there’s not a lot of hope for anything else we hope to do as a people.”

For more information, and to view the documentary, visit FoodNetwork.com/hungry.

As was the case last year, The National Hunger Free Communities Summit is being held in conjunction with FRAC and Feeding America’s National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference, which begins on Sunday, February 26, 2012. Like last year, need-based scholarships are once again being offered for travel to the Summit. Applications can be found at http://www.hungerfreecommunities.org/summit/scholarships/.  This year, a few additions have been made to the program.

For the first time, Innovation Awards are being offered to our Hunger Free Communities. These Innovation Awards are open to any Hunger Free Community. With a particular practice of which they are proud and a complete application (found at http://www.hungerfreecommunities.org/summit/innovation-awards/), any organization can win. These entries will be judged by the staff of the Alliance to End Hunger. The awards will go to those communities that have the most creative solutions to addressing hunger. Awardees are given the opportunity to present their ideas to the Summit during a special luncheon panel, allowing other important anti-hunger advocates to see what exciting things their organizations are doing.

On top of the Innovation Awards, the Alliance is especially excited about the speakers for the conference. One of the goals of the conference is to present diverse, pertinent information to each attendee. This year’s speakers, including Former Congresswoman Eva Clayton, Ambassador Tony Hall of the Alliance to End Hunger, Rosemary Johnston of Maryland Governor’s Office on Children, Jeremy Everett of the Texas Hunger Initiative, Dave Miner of Indianapolis Food Resource Network, and many more, will do just that.

In continuing with their goal to end domestic hunger, the Alliance is bringing together individuals from across the United States. Attendees will represent anti-hunger coalitions located nationwide, including: California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and more! The Alliance hopes that the Summit will continue building the political will to end hunger in each of the United States. With over 20 states currently represented, many coalitions will benefit from this networking opportunity.

Just a few weeks remain until the National Hunger Free Communities Summit on February 25, 2012. Registration is filling up rapidly and closes on February 13. To register, click here. Please visit the Hunger Free Communities website at hungerfreecommnities.org/summit to register, view the latest agenda, get travel information, and more. If you have any questions about registration for the Summit, please contact Nicole Washington.

Maryland Hunger Solutions and the Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Maryland (the “Partnership”) experienced one particular challenge in its work to implement the Afterschool Meal Program in the eight Hunger-Free Community (HFC) counties and statewide: confusion between local health departments and potential afterschool sites concerning the documentation needed to operate the Afterschool Meal Program. The first example brought to our attention involved the Boys and Girls Clubs of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County (BGCAA). Sponsored by the Maryland Food Bank, BGCAA has six sites throughout Anne Arundel County and provides programming to more than 2,400 children each year. All of the BGCAA sites participated in the Summer Food Service Program and were anxious to begin participating in the Afterschool Meal Program, through which the sites could provide a healthy supper to the more than 300 children enrolled in their afterschool programs.

BGCAA arranged for the hot meals to be provided to each site by a licensed, approved vendor contracted by the Maryland Food Bank. The Maryland Food Bank then worked with the Maryland State Department of Education to temporarily approve the six sites to begin serving suppers while BGCAA completed the application process. However, during a review of the sites by the local health department, the health inspector found that all but one site did not have a three-compartment sink and other commercial grade equipment necessary to operate the program. As a result, the health department required that all six sites immediately stop serving meals through the Afterschool Meal Program.

Confused by the requirements, BGCAA and the Maryland Food Bank approached Maryland Hunger Solutions. Since no food was being prepared on-site, BGCAA and the Maryland Food Bank could not determine the reason for the site closings. After learning that similar problems were affecting a number of jurisdictions across the state, Maryland Hunger Solutions determined that more intense training targeted to local health inspectors on the Afterschool Meal Program was needed to clarify how the program operated.

Maryland Hunger Solutions worked with the State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH, which oversees environmental health in Maryland) to review the current regulations and determine how to provide clear guidance on what was required to operate the meal program to both local health departments and afterschool programs. Maryland Hunger Solutions and DHMH developed new materials, including: a checklist for both health departments and programs to follow in completing the application process; a guide to currently existing regulations; and a flow chart to help health departments identify what type of afterschool meal delivery systems they are evaluating. Maryland Hunger Solutions and DHMH attended statewide and regional meetings with local health officers and inspectors to provide trainings on the Afterschool Meal Program, and to disseminate our easy-to-understand materials.

A solution for the challenge BGCAA and the Maryland Food Bank were facing was created through discussions with DHMH. According to Maryland regulations, if any food preparation or serving item needed to be washed at the program site, a three-compartment, sanitizing sink was required. Previously, BGCAA received the food from the vendor, served the meals to the children, and then rinsed the serving dishes and utensils before returning to the vendor. Since no food was being prepared on-site, DHMH agreed that if the vendor changed its model and didn’t require the site to rinse any pans or serving utensils prior to returning, then a three-compartment sink would not be required. Maryland Food Bank discussed the change with their vendor, who agreed to adjust its model. BGCAA then reapplied to their local health department, using the checklist we developed with DHMH to explain their new meal delivery method and the proper procedures for handling the food service items. Since the local health department had participated in the statewide trainings held by MDHS and DHMH, they were familiar with the checklist and were able to easily understand the serving model proposed by BGCAA. The health department quickly approved BGCAA for food service.

As a result of our efforts, and the hard work of DHMH, MSDE, and the Maryland Food Bank, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County are again serving the hot suppers that so many of their children and parents have come to rely on in this time of particular economic hardship.

To learn more about the Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Maryland please visit www.nokidhungrymd.org.

In this post, our colleagues at Fighting Poverty With Faith share important information about their fall anti-poverty mobilization, which will focus this year on “Working Together to End Hunger”.  They also discuss their excellent new action toolkits.

We are seeing a trend of political divisiveness across the country, where politicians and political rhetoric pull people apart and leave little space for compromise. So what can we do? How can we start to bridge these wide divides?

It is easy to be critical of people you do not know, and of challenges you have not experienced. In other words, don’t judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in his/her shoes.

To help build these shared experiences, the fourth annual Fighting Poverty with Faith mobilization, with the theme “Working Together to End Hunger,” will take place from Thursday, October 27 – Sunday, November 6, 2011. Fighting Poverty with Faith is an annual, interfaith, anti-poverty mobilization that brings together over 50 national faith-based organizations to address root causes of poverty, with the goal of halving domestic poverty between 2010 and 2020.

In 2011, Fighting Poverty with Faith, co-sponsored by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Catholic Charities, and the National Council of Churches, is “Working Together to End Hunger.” Everyone is invited to participate, as an individual, family, congregation, community or youth group, school, or faith-based organization.

We encourage faith-based and interfaith organizations to come together to plan a Fighting Poverty with Faith program, in particular a Food Stamp Challenge, Hunger Banquet, or screening of the documentary Food Stamped. Each of these programs is described briefly below and more information – including action toolkits, media resources, sample program plans, etc – is available on the Fighting Poverty with Faith website, www.fightingpovertywithfaith.com/f2/actiontoolkits.

• The Food Stamp Challenge is a challenge to live for 1 week on the average food stamp allotment, which is $31.50 for the week and approximately $1.50 per meal. Leaders and community members across the country are taking the Food Stamp Challenge to  better understand the food stamp program (formally called SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), the challenges of eating well on SNAP,  and to highlight the continued need for and importance of feeding programs to alleviate hunger in the United States. Spread the word and try to get your friends, neighbors, and community leaders to join you in this Challenge! Register online at www.fightingpovertywithfaith.com/f2/actiontoolkits. If you are planning to take the Food Stamp Challenge, we encourage you to plan a kick-off community-wide event to highlight the effort and educate more community members about SNAP and the challenge of hunger in the US.

• The Fighting Poverty with Faith Oxfam Hunger Banquet is an experiential program designed to teach organizers and participants how hunger impacts people in the United States. Here’s how it works: Guests draw tickets at random that assign them to a high-, middle-, or low-income group. Each income level receives a corresponding meal: The high-income group receives a complete meal such as chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and sparkling cider; The middle-income group receives a simple meal of a small slice of pizza or a hot dog and soda; The low-income group receives only small portions of white bread and water.

• Host a screening of the documentary film Food Stamped, an informative and humorous documentary film following a couple as they attempt to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet on a food stamp budget. This is a very easy-to-plan community event, especially when used as a kick-off or closing event for the Food Stamp Challenge. Watch the trailer here: http://fightingpovertywithfaith.com/f2/home/foodstamped/. And if you are thinking about hosting a screening, please email Elana (efox@thejcpa.org) and let us know; depending on interest, Fighting Poverty with Faith may be able to offer communities a copy of the film at a reduced price.

If you are an individual interested in getting involved, but unable to attend or plan a community event, join us by taking the Food Stamp Challenge! Register online at www.fightingpovertywithfaith.com/f2/actiontoolkits. And then share your experience by writing an op-ed, a blog post, or using social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc).

Fighting Poverty with Faith events serve a dual purpose, to educate individuals and communities about the continued challenge of hunger in the United States, and to inspire people to take action to end hunger by protecting the SNAP (food stamps) program from funding cuts and structural changes. Over 44 million Americans rely on SNAP to provide enough food for their families. 47.5% of SNAP recipients are children and 8.3% are seniors. In May 2011, SNAP use reached its highest point ever, with nearly 46 million Americans receiving benefits.

Participating in Fighting Poverty with Faith’s experiential programs can help all Americans understand the challenges of hunger and build the political will to push to protect the SNAP program from funding cuts and structural changes and work to finally end hunger in the United States.

Will you join us?

Please register your events on the Fighting Poverty with Faith national events calendar at http://fightingpovertywithfaith.com/f2/upload-new-events/. 

For more information, please contact Elana Fox, JCPA Poverty Campaign Coordinator, at efox@thejcpa.org or 202-212-6037.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 13, 2011
Chris Latondresse, 202-368-0739 direct
clatondresse@alliancetoendhunger.org

Washington, D.C. — Today the Alliance to End Hunger launched the Hunger Free Communities Network, a new nationwide online hub and best-practices clearinghouse for those active in local anti-hunger work to connect with one another, learn from each other and access resources from across the local and national anti-hunger community.

The goal of the initiative is to help catalyze the growth and establishment of Hunger Free Communities. At their core, these initiatives are formed around the belief that it is possible to end hunger at the community level by bringing together a broad range of community stakeholders — from across the private, public and social sectors — and uniting them behind a common vision and strategy.

“When I was a Congressman representing the 3rd District of Ohio, I brought together all the organizations in Dayton who were working with hungry people. We decided to make our community hunger-free,” said Ambassador Tony Hall, the Executive Director of the Alliance to End Hunger, to over 150 hunger activists on a conference call announcing the launch of the new network. “It was an enormous task, but by working together, we proved that it is possible to make a major dent in hunger at a local level.”

Also speaking on the call were Duke Storen, Director, Office of Strategic Initiatives, Partnerships, and Outreach, Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kori Reed, Vice President, Foundation and Cause at ConAgra Foods and representative from the Corporate Hunger Coalition, Rob Zeaske, Executive Director of Second Harvest Heartland, and J.K. Granberg-Michaelson, Hunger Free Communities Coordinator at the Alliance to End Hunger.

“We are pleased to be working with the Alliance to End Hunger as we attempt to connect our efforts in Minnesota to the rest of the country,” said Rob Zeaske. “Knowing that none of us can do this alone, we hope to connect with, learn from and support the best approaches to make sure that none of our neighbors goes hungry in his or her time of need.”

“As corporations and corporate foundations, we are privileged to work directly with non-profit organizations in the community that are working on the frontline to help end hunger,” said Kori Reed, “The power of the Hunger-Free Communities Network is to share the great work, bring the ideas to scale and really make an impact on reducing food insecurity in this country.”

The HFC Network was formed as a response to the Alliance to End Hunger’s first National Hunger Free Communities Summit, a one day event held in March 2011, convened in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Share our Strength, Feeding America, and the Food Research and Action Center. The event provided current and aspiring Hunger Free Community organizers a forum to hear from experts about innovative models for building community coalitions to end hunger; share lessons learned and successful strategies; and learn about best practices to coordinate hunger relief, leverage available resources and implement multi-year plans.

“At the Alliance to End Hunger, we are committed to supporting innovation and finding ways to scale up best practices,” concluded Ambassador Tony Hall. “We’re not the experts on ending hunger in your communities, and no one organization can be. We believe that by creating this online community, we can all learn together. By combining the knowledge and expertise of hunger advocates all over the country, we can move towards a future where every community is hunger free.”

This new initiative comes at a critical time in the movement to end hunger in the United States. More than 50 million Americans live in food insecure households, the highest prevalence rate since the U.S. government first started documenting hunger figures in 1997.

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The Alliance to End Hunger engages diverse institutions in building the public and political will to end hunger at home and abroad. The Alliance has more than 80 members — corporations, non-profit groups, universities, individuals, and Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious groups.   www.alliancetoendhunger.org

As a capacity-building collaborative project, the Texas Hunger Initiative (THI) inherently establishes multi-disciplinary or cross-sector collaborations to improve outreach, community organizing, advocacy, and service coordination in local communities to more effectively service children at risk of hunger. THI states, in its core values, that faith-based communities, non-profit organizations, and government agencies must partner together and with society in order to alleviate poverty and hunger. We help foster partnerships within communities to raise awareness about hunger and nutrition, advocate for policy change, and help create effective service delivery.

THI relies on the creation of Food Planning Associations (FPAs) which work on the local level in communities to assess structure and procedures of food delivery systems, identify resources and gaps, make decisions for change, and implement their action plans in order to provide healthy and nutritious food to an increased number of people. FPAs are composed of government and civic leaders, food security stakeholders, and volunteers from the community.

The Texas Food Bank Network has partnered with THI to establish a grassroots outreach effort to increase participation in public and private resources available to the regions which includes a soon to be released Blueprint to End Hunger. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA), and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) have joined with THI to coordinate Federal Nutrition Service programs with the State Operations Team (SOT). THI proposes that the SOT create an efficient system of jurisdiction and accountability for food delivery in the state. The SOT collaboratively looks for ways to work together to address gaps in service, reduce duplication, and conduct creative outreach efforts with programs across state agency boundaries that are working with the same families on the local level.

THI has created a Food Policy Roundtable (FPR) with our policy partners which are a collaborative gathering of THI’s 35 policy partners and over 50 interested organizations, who think strategically about policy and governmental procedures, discuss needed changes in policy, and advocate for legislative change. As they are formed, the local Food Planning Associations are connected to the statewide Food Policy Roundtable to ensure that the FPR’s advocacy matches the reality of individual communities’ needs.

Through our partnerships and research, we will develop a best practice model for community assessments, outreach, community organizing, advocacy, and service coordination in local communities. As part of Baylor University, THI has at its disposal the expertise of professionals and faculty across many different disciplines to address this challenge from a variety of perspectives. We will be using the resources of our academic community in partnership with our local communities to pilot and evaluate our model. We will utilize the research of faculty members from the School of Social Work to share our findings and our recommendations through published journal articles. Working together, we truly believe that we can make Texas food secure by 2015.

For more information about the Texas Hunger Initiative, check out the strategic summary in our resource library, and visit THI’s website at www.texashunger.org.

Dear hunger fighters,

On behalf of the Alliance to End Hunger, welcome to HungerFreeCommunities.org, home of the Hunger Free Communities Network (HFC Network). This website is a nationwide platform where you can connect with others who are working to end hunger in their communities. Here, you will be able to learn from one another and share resources created by the local and national anti-hunger community.

When I was a Congressman representing the 3rd District of Ohio, I brought together all the organizations in Dayton who were working with hungry people. Together we decided to make our community hunger-free. It was an enormous task. As I travelled across the country, talking with other people who were working to make their communities hunger-free, I picked up a lot of great ideas that we were able to use in Dayton. It was a tremendous experience.

In 1992, when I was chair of the Select Committee on Hunger, we had a series of hearings to identify the best practices, from across the U.S., to make a community hunger-free. We heard from grassroots-hunger advocates from all over the country: Washington, D.C., Dallas, Dayton, and St. Paul. As a result, we created a 14-point plan for making a community hunger-free. Fifteen years later, those 14 points became the basis for USDA’s Hunger Free Communities Grant Program.

In March 2011, the Alliance to End Hunger, together with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Share our Strength, Feeding America, and the Food Research and Action Center, convened the first ever National Hunger Free Communities Summit. More than 200 current and aspiring Hunger Free Community organizers – nonprofit, religious, private sector and public sector leaders committed to ending hunger in their community – attended the event. We had a chance to hear about innovative models for building community coalitions to end hunger; shared successful strategies; and learned about coordinating hunger relief, leveraging available resources and implementing multi-year plans. We look forward to hosting the second annual Summit next year.

Of course, the challenge of hunger in America is much larger than any event can hope to address. We created this website in order to carry the momentum of the Summit forward, and to give you a platform for continued engagement. I hope you will take the time to explore some of the website’s features, such as our blog, discussion forums, and resource library. I also hope that you will take a few minutes, if you haven’t done so already, to complete a profile for your organization or coalition, which we will include in our forthcoming map-based directory.

If you have any questions, feedback, ideas, or content to contribute to the Network, please don’t hesitate to contact my colleague J.K. Granberg-Michaelson. In the months ahead, you can expect this website and online community to grow and evolve based on your needs and contributions.

At the Alliance to End Hunger, we are committed to supporting innovation and finding ways to scale up best practices. We’re not the experts on ending hunger in your communities, and no one organization can be. We believe that by creating this online community, we can all learn together. By combining the knowledge and expertise of hunger advocates all over the country, we can move towards a future where every community is hunger free.

Sincerely,

Ambassador Tony P. Hall
Executive Director, Alliance to End Hunger

The Twin Cities Hunger Initiative started in 2006, convened by Greater Twin Cities United Way. The intent of the initiative was to convene a broad group of hunger leaders to create a plan for ending hunger in the nine-county region.

Forum keynote speaker Tim Marx, CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, gave an inspiring presentation about solving hunger through innovation and collective action. “Poverty is expensive,” said Marx. “If we want to cut expenses, solving poverty is a top priority.”

The forum continued with breakout sessions focusing on three topics: increasing the amount of food in the system, maximizing federal food support programs and increasing access to meals for children. Groups brainstormed and collected their best ideas for solving hunger in our community, and each participant made a personal commitment to help end hunger.

As the forum wrapped up, guests watched a message from Senator Amy Klobuchar, who praised the work of the Twin Cities Hunger Initiative and motivated participants to stay involved. “Not all angels have wings,” she told participants. “You are angels to the thousands of Minnesotans affected by hunger-relief efforts. Thank you!”

Thank you to everyone who attended,participated and volunteered. Solving hunger in Minnesota is possible when we all work together toward achieving our goal.

For post-forum materials, visit http://www.unitedfrontmn.org/hunger