It’s fair to say that most food banks generally appreciate the Emergency Food Assistance Program. It’s the only federal nutrition program specifically geared toward food banks, providing them with a wide variety of fresh, frozen and canned foods. Most of the food is healthy, and all of it comes from…
Posts published in “SNAP+”
It’s hard to overstate the impact that the USDA’s new summer feeding program will have on alleviating summer food insecurity. By making it much easier to get food, the program is expected to reach 21 million kids, a massive expansion from the three million kids who utilized summer feeding in…
By all accounts, a program that the USDA introduced in late 2021 to help local farmers grow nutritious food for underserved communities has worked out exceedingly well (Food Bank News first wrote about it here.) The Local Food Purchase Assistance program has resulted in nearly $700 million of funds going…
In just a couple of months, eligible families in 36 states will be able to use federal benefits loaded onto cards to purchase food for their kids during the summer. The program, known as Summer EBT (for electronic benefits transfer), is based on a similar program that emerged during the…
In 2020, roughly six million women, infants, and children eligible for WIC were not participating in the program. Now, the WIC Community Innovation and Outreach Project (WIC CIAO) is looking for innovative ways to say “hello” to new participants. Funded by a $44 million USDA grant to the Food Research…
The USDA is hoping food banks will help it advance new methods of distributing summer meals to kids. A new ruling, made permanent when President Biden signed the huge omnibus spending bill at the end of 2022, lets food banks and pantries be federally reimbursed for summer meals distributed in…
When Second Harvest Heartland of Minn. sponsored a study to better understand SNAP usage among Latinos, it was not much of a surprise to discover that the community had numerous misconceptions about the program. A few specific misperceptions did surprise though, such as the belief that SNAP applicants’ children would…
The Capital Area Food Bank is one of only six food banks in the Feeding America network to serve three states, giving it a front-row seat into the multitude of ways the federal TEFAP program is administered across state lines. The 40-year-old program, which distributes commodities grown on U.S. farms…
When it comes to nutritional quality, a recent study has given the green light to the majority of foods in three USDA food programs at the heart of the charitable food system. The study assessed food items offered by the TEFAP commodity food program for food banks, the FDPIR program…