Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Let’s Feed America



Click Here: With the match, $1 will provide 18 meals.

When I was asked to do a blog post for a Feeding America Blogathon a few years ago, I set my Googles to the task: first, to find out what Feeding America was, and second, to find out a little bit more about food security in America and the food stamp program, SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program).

Feeding America has some pretty simple origins:

In the late 1960s, John van Hengel, a retired businessman in Phoenix, Arizona began volunteering at a local soup kitchen, and began soliciting food donations for the kitchen. He ended up with far more food than the kitchen could use in its operations. Around this time, he spoke with one of the clients, who told him that she regularly fed her family with discarded items from the grocery store’s garbage bins. She told him that the food quality was fine, but that there should be a place where unwanted food could be stored and later accessed by people who needed it, similar to how banks store money.

Van Hengel began to actively solicit this unwanted food from grocery stores, local gardens, and nearby produce farms. His effort led to the creation of St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, the nation’s first food bank.

(I want to pause here for a minute to think about a time when a food kitchen had too much food).

The food banks became Second Harvest which in turn became Feeding America in 2008:


Feeding America is the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.  Our mission is to feed America’s hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage our country in the fight to end hunger.

Each year, the Feeding America network provides food to more than 37 million low-income people facing hunger in the United States, including 14 million children and nearly 3 million seniors.

Our network of more than 200 food banks serves all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, securing and distributing more than 3 billion pounds of food and grocery products annually. Those member food banks support approximately 61,000 local charitable agencies and 70,000 programs, which provide food directly to individuals and families in need.

 

But Hunger in America is more than numbers, more than just pounds of food and dollars spent. Hunger in America has a face…the faces of those who depend on food pantries to survive. They are the people in these videos.

 

 

Republicans in the House of Representatives voted first for $40 billion in cuts to SNAP and then to not fund it at all by passing the Farm Bill without food stamp assistance, promising to “get around to it someday”.

So what is stopping Republican House Members from funding food stamps?

Food Stamp Abuuuuuuse!! (If that sounds suspiciously like Benghaziiiii and IRSssssssss and ACOOOOOOORRRRNN that’s because it is … another fabricated right-wing “scandal”).

Food Stamp abuse is a myth … but Hunger in America is not. From once-and-future-Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

(Read more here: Bill Moyers: Six Myths About Food Stamps )

Want some facts? Take the Feeding America Quiz (I am sure it will stump Republicans … although it might not surprise them, which would be even sadder).

Do you want to know who benefits from food stamps and food pantries? We all do. Because when we feed the hungry we exemplify the best of our Big-D Democratic Party values – putting people first and valuing human life.

Here is another organization asking for some help, political help this time:



Jan —

Last year, 49 million Americans struggled with hunger.

Many rely on food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to put healthy meals on the table.

This September, House leadership stripped $40 billion from this program, meaning — if funding isn’t restored — 3.8 million Americans will be booted off food stamps next year, and many will lose the security of knowing how they’ll feed their family.

Thanksgiving is a powerful reminder of just how cruel these budget cuts are to families in need. Now is a great time to speak out.

Add your name, and call on Speaker Boehner and House leaders to restore funding for food stamps that millions of families rely on.

This measure is not just mean spirited. It happens to be bad for the economy, too. Moody Analytics has found that nutrition assistance is one of the most effective forms of stimulus available, because the funds go right back into the economy.

Despite the talking points from the other side, you can’t ignore the fact that about half of SNAP recipients are children. Many others are veterans, the elderly, and the working poor.

Thanksgiving is a celebration of plenty, and a time to consider our friends and neighbors who aren’t as fortunate.

In that spirit, we’ve got to stand up for the millions of Americans who stand to lose access to this vital program.

Add your name, and tell House leaders to restore funding for food stamps:

http://my.barackobama.com/Restore-Food-Stamp-Funding

Thanks — more soon,

Nico

Nico Probst

Director of Special Projects

Organizing for Action

P.S. — If you’d like to do more to support families in need this holiday season, please consider making a donation to Feeding America or contributing to a food drive in your community.

Here, let me make that easy for you.


15 comments

  1. bfitzinAR

    and also donate to Heifer International and to our local community meals program (hot midday dinners served M-Th at local churches plus a “brown bag” of something sustaining but not in need of refrigeration to take for supper if you wish) and to OCIKIYAP (did I spell that right?) and also to a couple of friends in need until they can get back on their feed.

    Maybe it would be better to put all of it in one place rather than spread it around.  I’ve never been sure what would feed the most folks for the money I have to give at least until I retire sometime in the next 4 years.  (Paying it forward – I was a single parent on food stamps 30 years ago.)

    I’ve also signed the petition – not that I think the Rs will pay any attention at all to what should be the defining action of their so-called Christianity.  Thanks to you for the diary.  

  2. SUPPORTING FAMILIES, STRENGTHENING COMMUNITIES: THE ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF NUTRITION ASSISTANCE (PDF)

    The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)is one of our nation’s strongest defenses

    against hunger and poverty. The program assists millions of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, including working families with children, senior citizens, veterans, and adults who are still looking for work. The program has become one of the main anchors of the social safety net, offering nutrition assistance to millions of eligible low-income individuals and families and providing economic benefits to communities. And, in addition to helping families put food on the table, SNAP also benefits farm and rural economies.

    Bullet points:

    – SNAP Kept Nearly 5 Million People Out Of Poverty In 2012, And Is One Of The Country’s Most Effective Tools Against Poverty And Hunger

    – Program Benefits Are Targeted To Those Most In Need

    – SNAP Is An Efficient And Effective Program: Overhead Is Very Low, And Accuracy Has Reached An Historic High.

    – SNAP is Pro-Work

    – CBO Estimates That Every New SNAP Dollar Generates Up To 1.80 In Economic Activity

    This:

    On the Bill passed by House Republicans:

    House Bill Would Create Unnecessary and Harsh Impact for Millions of Americans

    Legislation passed by House Republicans would result in millions of Americans losing access to SNAP – the cuts affecting a broad array of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, including working families with children, senior citizens, veterans, and adults who are still looking for work. The deep cuts would hit some of the nation’s poorest children in families where parents are out of work. […]

    Although ten consecutive quarters of economic growth have raised the output of the American economy to an all-time high, and the labor market has grown steadily as America’s resilient businesses have added jobs for 44 consecutive months, due the depth of the recession that began in 2007, more work must be done to aid workers who continue to struggle to find jobs and to ensure that the economy continues to grow. As of October 2013, 11.3 million workers are unemployed, including 4.1 million who have been out of work for more than 26 weeks. These families rely on this basic food assistance to keep their children fed, and SNAP is a vital stepping stone as they get back on their feet. The drastic cuts in the House bill would greatly harm families struggling to find work and those that depend on low-wage jobs as the economy continues to recover.

    The report concludes (on page 11) with a chart showing the reliance on food stamps by state in FY2011.

    Wisconsin: 801,000 people, 174,000 children, 57,000 elderly. (psst, Republicans!! Those last two categories of recipients can’t just “go get a job”. Not providing them with food stamps is simply starving them.)

  3. Diana in NoVa

    Thanks for this diary, Jan! It seems especially fortuitous because I was just thinking that I must donate to a Goddess-related cause today in thanks for yesterday’s news. Feeding the hungry is something a Mother does. 🙂

    The news came in the form of a telephone call Wednesday night to my daughter-in-law. The baby to be born next June is perfectly healthy and it’s a BOY! In our family we have seven girls and only one boy in the younger generation, so we are all feeling happy and grateful.

  4. The GOP’s Hunger Games: More Food Stamp Cuts for the Holidays?

    Republican lawmakers are on the defensive as the country heads into the holiday season, with cutbacks in food stamps stressing needy families while Congress debates how much more to cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). “Which of your constituents do you think should go hungry?” asks a holiday card electronically delivered to members of Congress this week. It points out that the proposed cuts mean “less food and more hunger for millions of low income seniors, veterans, working families with children and disabled Americans.”

    Who is “whogoeshungry.org” the website that Clift refers to? FRAC, Food Research and Action Committee.

    The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is the leading national nonprofit organization working to improve public policies and public-private partnerships to eradicate hunger and undernutrition in the United States. FRAC works with hundreds of national, state and local nonprofit organizations, public agencies, corporations and labor organizations to address hunger, food insecurity, and their root cause, poverty.

    From the Clift article:

    At the same time, assistance to farmers, traditionally coupled in the same bill with SNAP, appears to be weathering the GOP’s budget-cutting knife just fine. “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” said Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN), invoking the Bible to explain his vote earlier this year to cut food stamps while calling for increased crop subsidies for farmers. His family farm received more than $3.5 million in federal money over the years, making him the poster boy for 33 members of Congress who voted to cut food stamps, a program that helps the least among us, while having no qualms about accepting federal largesse for their farm businesses.

    Twenty percent of Fincher’s constituents are on the SNAP program, says Jim Weill, president of Food Research and Action Center, which launched the website with the holiday greeting designed to trigger guilt over who is left behind during these days of plenty.

    By the way, this comment should be up for Heartless Hateful Comment of the Year from a Congress filled with heartless hateful people:

    “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,”

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