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…
Posts published in “SNAP+”
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…
Food banks are well aware that the extra SNAP benefits given out during the pandemic have now expired in every state. But they may not be aware of a tool that can help them more accurately predict the impact of the benefit’s expiration. The Food Insecurity Index, developed by Conduent…
During the pandemic, the federal Farmers to Families Food Box program loomed large for hunger relief organizations as instrumental in getting food to people who needed it. In the overall scheme of things, however, the program was pretty small potatoes. The USDA last month released its annual Food and Nutrition…
Struggle often breeds innovation, a concept that Jeremy Cooley, CEO of Tangelo, an online e-commerce platform, understands. Cooley made it his mission to highlight the importance of nutritious food after 2017, when his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live. After proper nutrition helped extend…
Food banks and pantries can look forward to increased opportunities to create more resilient, food-secure communities, thanks to comprehensive funding recently announced by the USDA that promises to overhaul the framework of the American food system. Announced June 1, USDA’s Food System Transformation framework fills in the details of a…