The lowly cardboard box plays a starring role in the USDA’s plan to purchase $3 billion worth of commodities from the nation’s farmers and pass it along to food banks and other hunger-relief organizations. The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program or CFAP, announced late last week, requires wholesalers and distributors to…
Posts published in “SNAP+”
If you’ve ever wondered whether public comments sent in to the USDA to oppose proposed SNAP cuts make any difference, then Anore Horton, Executive Director of Hunger Free Vermont, wants you to know: “They make a huge difference.” Here’s why: By law, the USDA must take into account every public…
In 1977, participation in the two-year-old Summer Food Service Program reached 2.8 million kids. By 2018 — 41 years later — participation in summer meals had advanced to only 2.9 million. Why the slow growth? It’s not due to a lack of need, given that during the school year, about…
With WIC participation declining at an alarming rate, some food banks and hunger-relief agencies are taking steps to shore up their local programs. Participation in the federal benefit for women and their children has dropped 23% from 2010 through 2018, said Food Research & Action Center in a report released…
SNAP is by far the most effective tool available to help the country’s 40 million food-insecure individuals, so it’s natural that hunger-relief advocates always want to see SNAP participation and spending go up. For the past five years, however, the trend has been the opposite. The latest figures, released last…
With attention focused on whether some able-bodied adults may be restricted from receiving SNAP (today is the last day to submit comments on this Trump Administration proposal*), it’s a good time to consider the many positive provisions tucked away the recently passed farm bill. While the protection of SNAP was…
Should SNAP participants be allowed to use their benefits to purchase sugary beverages? This enduring question got put to the test again this week when two prominent health organizations recommended that recipients of federal nutrition assistance be dissuaded from buying sugary drinks. The advice was part of a policy statement…
At just over one million meals served, the federal after-school meals program, largely funded through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), does not have near the reach of school lunch or breakfast, but diligence and creativity on the part of some food banks is helping to raise its…
Propel, a Brooklyn, NY, startup that offers an app to manage SNAP, scrambled as soon as it heard that the government would be handing out February SNAP benefits early due to the shutdown. Early issuance of SNAP would create a long gap between payments, it realized, and it hoped to…