Michael McKenna
Field Manager, No Kid Hungry Campaign
Share Our Strength
Michael McKenna is Field Manager for Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign®. He tries to keep the Share Our Strength network informed about happenings on Capitol Hill, our state campaigns, and broader socioeconomic trends in his blog posts. Michael has held a longtime interest in food security and agriculture and decided to focus on hunger policy after working with the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Food Agencies. While there he worked on reform issues at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (and enjoyed the incredible food and wine in Rome). He previously worked with the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. He holds a Master’s in International Development from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Originally from Philadelphia, Mike spent his college years at the University of Notre Dame where he mobilized a voter registration and education campaign through the Center for Social Concerns.
Posts By Michael McKenna on Strength.org
- A warm welcome to No Kid Hungry Michigan! [ No comments]
- May 17, 2012
Last week, Michigan joined the No Kid Hungry Campaign during an exciting kick off at a Detroit elementary school. Gompers Elementary School in Detroit is a beacon in a neighborhood that’s seen better days. It’s impressive from the outside (including a great school garden), but then you are moved by how new, clean, and colorful the space is once you enter. It’s the kind of place you’d want to be every day. The space represented the theme of our visit – hope amid challenges – and its programs represented the reason why No Kid Hungry is bound for success in Michigan.
Tags: detroit, michigan, no kid hungry, state campaign - Big Goals - Big Results! [ No comments]
- March 6, 2012
At the turn of the century, world leaders hammered out an ambitious plan called the Millennium Development Goals. At the time, the most impressive and perhaps inconceivable goal was to cut global poverty in HALF by 2015.
Tags: economist, food crisis, poverty, recession, world bank - Tell Us Your No Kid Hungry Story [ No comments]
- December 6, 2011
A few weeks ago, the Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Maryland gathered in the state capital to review the five-year plan (we’re now in the third year of that plan. We worked through tactics for school breakfast and supper, discussed challenges and successes for summer meals, and did the same for SNAP (formerly known as food stamp) benefits, Earned Income Tax Credit, and WIC.
Tags: food stamps, no kid hungry, snap - The Truth About The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [ 1 comment]
- December 6, 2011
Millions of families in the United States continue to struggle to put food on the table. Today, 15 percent of all Americans -- more than 45 million -- rely on SNAP benefits.
Tags: food stamps, no kid hungry, snap - The What’s What of Congressional Creations: Making Sense of the Super Committee, Farm Bill, and the Jobs Bill [ No comments]
- September 26, 2011
The remembrances of those lost in the tragedy on 9/11 helped restore a sense of unity that hasn’t been felt in some time in Washington and across the country. Americans in every corner of this great nation recalled those months in that fateful fall when we knew we had to work together to heal, to combat the threats that attacked us, and to rebuild stronger than ever. Given the challenges our country faces today, hopefully we can once again muster that common purpose and desire to work together to get our nation back on surer footing.
Tags: jobs, no kid hungry, supercommittee - Making a Splash in the Fight Against Summer Hunger [ No comments]
- September 1, 2011
Our second summer meals site visit in Staten Island looked like it was the set of the Sandlot. You know the scene with Squints and the lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn? That’s right, what better place for a summer meals site than a community pool? Like libraries and parks, pools are places where kids naturally gather, which makes sense to use it as a site. While there, we spoke with the director of the Young People’s Day Camp in Brooklyn, whose campers were visiting the Staten Island pool. He said multiple times, “please thank your bosses. This program has been a huge help to our kids. Lot of parents can’t pack a lunch so when we’re traveling with the campers we can still get free lunches.”
Tags: new york city, no kid hungry, staten island, summer meals - “La vida de los pobres” [ No comments]
- September 1, 2011
Among the many groups in America today that sadly fall under the category of the poor, immigrants are one of the most vulnerable, often literally without a voice in the predominant tongue of this country. Last week I had the privilege of speaking with mothers at El Centro del Inmigrante, a social service agency serving the immigrant community (and free summer meals!) in Staten Island, New York City. I was reminded of a conversation I had years ago in a migrant shelter in El Paso, TX with a Mexican woman who in describing her recent hardships, simply told me, “Asi es la vida de los pobres.” In other words, “that’s just how it is when you’re poor.”
Tags: new york, no kid hungry, summer meals - Snapshot of a Norfolk Summer Meals Site [ No comments]
- August 5, 2011
At every stop on the summer meals road trip, the biggest takeaway for me is the joyful reminder that well-fed kids are happy kids. From the little girl who was proud to show off her Justin Beiber t-shirt to the little boy who beat five of his classmates at pool in a row, the children we meet are beneficiaries of the Summer Food Service Program, which once again proved its worth as an investment during a visit to Norfolk, VA.
Tags: no kid hungry, norfolk, summer meals, virginia - A Day with the Change Agents of Anne Arundel County, Maryland [ No comments]
- July 27, 2011
In a high school class on social justice, I was fascinated by the concept of the change agent, an individual whose words and actions become a catalyst for change to a social ill, policy or organizational problem. There are icons in American history like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez that fit the bill, but there are also everyday Americans catalyzing their peers, their co-workers, their neighbors to take action for the common good. A change agent is motivated by an idea that won’t let them go – a sense that there is some better future out there and they have the unique gift to take the long view while setting in motion the steps needed to implement the change piece by piece. In many ways, everyone who’s Sharing their Strength with us through No Kid Hungry is also a champion in this way.
Tags: maryland, summer meals - Sowing Good Seeds in Cambridge, Maryland [ No comments]
- July 13, 2011
In church on Sunday, the gospel reading was the parable of the sower who scatters seed on the road, in rocky ground, among weeds, and in fertile ground. According to the story of the sower and the seed, the seed that falls on the fertile ground bears fruit due to deep roots, whereas the seed in the other places fails to prosper. For Christians it’s a message about openness to God’s grace, but I think it’s also a good metaphor for community development. I couldn’t help but think back on my visit last week to Waugh Chapel in Cambridge, MD, a church serving summer meals to nearly 60 kids this summer.
Tags: church, maryland, summer meals - Stand Up for Children’s Rights – Call the White House to Save WIC and SNAP [ No comments]
- June 24, 2011
First off, thanks to so many of you who contacted your representatives after reading the last post about the House agricultural appropriations committee bill! Unfortunately, the cuts to WIC, TEFAP, the SNAP Reserve fund, and other programs important to hungry kids remained in the final version passed by the House. That means there’s still work to be done to keep the needs of low-income children at the forefront of our officials’ minds.
Tags: joe biden, snap, white house, wic - Rising Food Prices, Falling Program Funds: A Recipe for Hunger [ No comments]
- June 14, 2011
Mike McKenna explains the link between rising food prices and hunger, and why it's important to contact your Representative today.
Tags: congress, hunger, no kid hungry - Congress, [take] SNAP out of it please! (Part II) [ No comments]
- April 28, 2011
What you can do to help protest proposed cuts to SNAP in the Congressional budget.
Tags: congress, no kid hungry, snap - Congress, [take] SNAP out of it please! (Part I) [ No comments]
- April 28, 2011
Mike McKenna explains the role of SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) in fighting hunger and what proposed budget cuts would mean.
Tags: congress, no kid hungry, snap - Laying the Groundwork for Happy, Hunger Free Kids In Baltimore [ 1 comment]
- April 6, 2011
My colleague Anna Mudd and I were visiting the elementary school to promote free summer meals in Baltimore to a student population, over 90% of whom qualify for free and reduced-price school lunch. Anna and I told them that everyone who takes the pledge wants to make sure that “every kid in Maryland, every kid in Baltimore, every kid at Montebello has enough good food to eat all year round.”
Tags: maryland, No Kid Hungry, schools, summer meals - Fasting for a Just Federal Budget [ No comments]
- April 12, 2011
Because I didn’t eat mine last Wednesday. Along with Share Our Strength’s executive director Billy Shore and dozens of other members of our No Kid Hungry team, I fasted as a form of protest with the proposed House budget that hits the poor hardest through cuts to critical parts of the safety net.
Tags: budget, government, school breakfast, schools - Hungry for Justice [ No comments]
- March 29, 2011
“There are cuts that kill and cuts that don’t kill." Ritu Sharma, Executive Director of Women Thrive Worldwide, shared that sobering quote yesterday at the kick-off of the HungerFast campaign led by Ambassador Tony Hall of the Alliance to End Hunger and other hunger leaders. Ambassador Hall, Bread for the World President David Beckman, Sojourners President Jim Wallis, and Ms. Sharma, decided to fast in order to call attention to the dire impact that proposed budget cuts will have on programs on which low-income Americans depend.
Tags: budget, government, hunger - Contact your Senators! Ask them to Vote NO on the Anti-Poor House Cuts! [ 1 comment]
- March 7, 2011
his week, the Senate will take up the bill, H.R. 1. If you are as concerned as I am about what these spending cuts will mean for millions of low-income Americans, make sure you tell them so.
Tags: congress, no kid hungry - Does Congress care about low-income Americans? [ No comments]
- February 24, 2011
Does Congress care about low-income Americans? Sounds like a silly thing to ask...but it’s an interesting question to consider given the cuts from the first bill to pass the House of Representatives in the 112th Congress.
Tags: budget, government, state partnerships - Breakfast Building Blocks [ No comments]
- January 31, 2011
In the State of the Union, the President talked about the competitive future America’s kids face. Data show that kids that eat school breakfast perform better academically. That’s good news if we’re looking to raise a generation of critical thinkers ready to take on the challenges of the 21st century economy. But even though every child that gets free and reduced price school lunch qualifies for free and reduced price breakfast, less than half get it each morning.
Tags: president, State of the Union - Banana Republic’s not just the name of a store [ 1 comment]
- January 21, 2011
When you think of the American Dream, you probably think of a solidly middle class family. But that vision is increasingly becoming nothing more than a dream, as a growing share of the country’s population grows poorer while the superrich get superricher. No, I’m not about to talk about class warfare, I’m just stating the facts. This is the age of American Inequality.
Tags: inequality, poverty, school breakfast - Child Nutrition Reauthorization Passes! [ No comments]
- December 6, 2010
Late last week, after days of heated debate and a few interesting parliamentary maneuvers by supporters and detractors of the bill, the House of Representatives finally passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act with a final vote of 267 in favor and 157 against. Share Our Strength's Michael McKenna reviews the break-down of the bill by the numbers.
Tags: Child Nutrition Reauthorization, no kid hungry, politics - Last Chance for Child Nutrition Reauthorization! Call Your Congressmen Now! [ 5 comments]
- November 30, 2010
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives is likely to vote on the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the important piece of legislation that authorizes funding for and amends policy for a whole range of nutrition programs that help America’s hungry kids.
Tags: Child Nutrition Reauthorization, no kid hungry, politics - Tell the 111th Congress to go out with a bang! Let’s get this child nutrition bill passed! [ No comments]
- November 15, 2010
Share Our Strength's Michael McKenna looks at the urgent need to pass the child nutrition bill.
Tags: child nutrition act, Child Nutrition Reauthorization, USDA - Use your vote tomorrow to help kids…And don’t forget that the current Congress's work isn’t done yet [ 1 comment]
- October 29, 2010
Share Our Strength's Michael McKenna urges Americans to think of the kids as they vote on the Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill Tuesday.
Tags: Child Nutrition Reauthorization, no kid hungry - What’s wrong with America’s moral compass? [ No comments]
- October 21, 2010
Share Our Strength's Michael McKenna reacts to an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer that paints a picture of hunger and poverty in our own backyards.
Tags: Child Nutrition Reauthorization, extreme poverty, hunger - Breakfast in the Classroom [ No comments]
- October 1, 2010
Share Our Strength's Michael McKenna takes a look at an NBC video covering school breakfast programs in NYC.
Tags: childhood hunger, school breakfast - Chefs Tell Congress: Let’s Pass a Child Nutrition Bill ASAP [ 1 comment]
- September 22, 2010
Chefs show their support for Child Nutrition Reauthorization, telling Congress to pass a child nutrition bill ASAP!
Tags: chefs, Child Nutrition Reauthorization, no kid hungry - Russian Droughts and America's Families: the Unhappy Connection [ 2 comments]
- August 30, 2010
Russia has experienced a stretch of bad weather, including crippling droughts. Mike McKenna connects the dots between what's happening thousands of miles away and hunger in American families.
Tags: Child Nutrition Reauthorization, no kid hungry - Child Nutrition Reauthorization: What It Will Do and What You Can Do To Help [ 1 comment]
- July 30, 2010
Share Our Strength staffers attended yesterday's press conference about the U.S. Senate version of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill. Mike McKenna explains what the bill will do and what you can do to help make sure this important legislation passes.
Tags: Child Nutrition Reauthorization, no kid hungry - Food Network Star Shares Operation Frontline Success Stories with Congress [ 6 comments]
- April 28, 2010
On Wednesday, April 14 Congressman Joe Baca (CA-43), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry, held a hearing on “Access to Healthy Foods for Beneficiaries...
Tags: child nutrition act, childhood hunger, Cooking Matters, event, nutrition education, Operation Frontline, school lunch
