Tell the 111th Congress to go out with a bang! Let’s get this child nutrition bill passed!
Posted by Michael McKenna on Monday, November 15, 2010
Remember what I said in my post a few weeks back about democracy – never perfect, rarely easy …well the road to the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act is kind of like that. It has a lot of great ideas to fight hunger and obesity and improve nutritional quality of federal nutrition assistance programs. But in order to pay for it without adding new costs to the deficit, the Senate cut funding from a temporary increase to the food stamp program that was included in the stimulus bill. Families will not see a reduction in their benefits related to this cut until 2013, and hopefully never will; Sam Kass, White House assistant chef and advisor to First Lady Michelle Obama, announced a few weeks ago at Conference that the White House is committed to finding a way to restoring that food stamp funding through some other means. The House bill provides an additional $3.5B for these programs on top of the $4.5B authorized in the Senate Bill, but it hasn’t been paid for with offsets.
Political decisions are rarely easy. The House of Representatives needs to make a tough one in the next few weeks now that they’re back to Washington. They can pass the Senate’s version of the child nutrition bill and it can go directly to the President for signature and become law. If that happens, it will be the largest single investment in child nutrition programs in the history of these programs!
Among many important changes, the bill will help get more kids get summer and afterschool meals, improves nutrition standards for all foods sold in school, invests in efforts to streamline the registration process for eligible children to cut down on paperwork, and helps states compete for grants to implement public-private partnerships dedicated to ending childhood hunger.
This morning the USDA announced that nearly 17.2 million kids struggle with hunger. That’s 17.2 million too many. There is still time left for this Congress to do the right thing for our nation’s children. Let’s do our civic duty and keep the child nutrition bill on the agenda. Let’s get this passed before Thanksgiving!
Here’s how: First, visit http://www.change.org/shareourstrength/petitions/view/tellthe111thcongresstopassastrongchildnutritionbill_now and sign up for the petition Share Our Strength started!
Second, call your representative. (You can find your member of congress’ office number by entering your zip code at www.congress.org). Calling Congress is easy if you just follow these steps:
• When the office answers, introduce yourself and ask to speak to the legislative aide who covers the child nutrition bill.
• Explain why you care about this bill. Are you a parent, chef, nutritionist, educator, or health professional?
• Say, “I am a constituent of this district and I expect Representative __ to vote yes on the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.”
• Thank the staff member for his or her time.
Please write to us at info@strength.org and tell us about your experience! Together we’ll get this bill passed.
November 15, 2010 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: child nutrition act, Child Nutrition Reauthorization, USDA
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