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• Taste of the Nation

  Fine dining and tasting events that help make sure no kid in America grows up hungry.

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• Great American Bake Sale

  A national campaign that mobilizes Americans to end childhood hunger by holding bake sales in their communities.

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• Great American Dine Out

  When you eat; they eat. Join us September 20-26, 2009 for the 2nd annual Great American Dine Out! Learn how you can get involved.

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• A Tasteful Pursuit

  A national touring dinner series that features the nation's top chefs taking their talents to the nation’s top culinary cities.

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• Operation Frontline

  A groundbreaking cooking-based nutrition education program that teaches families how to prepare healthy, tasty meals on a limited budget.

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Childhood Hunger in America

• Childhood Hunger in America
• Facts on Hunger
• Hunger Glossary
• Our 10-Point Plan
• Our Grants at Work
• State Partnerships
  • Maryland
• Operation Frontline
• Hunger News & Facts
• Bill Shore's Letters

State Partnerships

Share Our Strength's Plan to End Childhood Hunger

TO SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE CHILDHOOD HUNGER, YOU HAVE TO START WITH A STRONG, THOUGHTFUL PLAN OF ATTACK.

At Share Our Strength, our strategic plan to end childhood hunger focuses on three primary areas:

• Increasing access to public and private programs that provide food to children and their families.
• Strengthening community resources that connect children to healthy food.
• Improving families' knowledge about available programs and how to get the most from limited resources.

Since 2004, childhood hunger has been our focus and priority. With the help of many, we've made significant progress including:

1. Established four state childhood hunger partnerships. Each has published its own plan for ending childhood hunger, modeled after Share Our Strength's national strategic plan:
   • The Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in the Nation's Capital, a joint effort of the Food Research and Action Center, D.C. Hunger Solutions and Share Our Strength.
   • Florida Partnership to End Childhood Hunger with Florida Impact as its lead agency.
   • End Childhood Hunger Washington with advocacy leader Children's Alliance.
   • Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Maryland with the Governor's Office for Children.
2. On November 24, 2008, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and Share Our Strength Founder Billy Shore announced the Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Maryland. Gov. O'Malley vowed to become the first state to end childhood hunger in America, and named the Governor's Office for Children as the lead state agency in the partnership. The Partnership has laid out one-year goals in its four focus areas:
   • Increasing the number of households with kids who receive food stamp benefits
   • Increasing the number of summer meals served
   • Increasing the number if children who receive school breakfast
   • Increasing the number of licensed child care centers who participate in the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
3. Since 2006, The Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in the Nation's Capital has achieved the following:
   • Worked with schools so that an average of 20,000 children get school breakfast each day.
   • Helped schools replace standard vending machine fare with healthier food options.
   • Implemented a program that allows low-income families to use their SNAP (food stamps) debit cards at area farmers markets.
   • Added more than 1,500 women to WIC roles.
   • Implemented a corner market study on the availability of fruits and vegetables to at-risk families.
   • Increased participation in summer meals to a record 29,000 children.
   • Tripled participation in after-school food programs to more than 9,000 children.
   • Enrolled 15 new childcare centers in nutrition programs so that 300 more children get breakfast and lunch every day.
4. The Florida Partnership to End Childhood Hunger has made great progress since its launch in 2007. The Partnership has:
   • Successfully advocated for passage of The Willie Glenn Act which is bringing a summer meal site to within five miles of every elementary school in the state. Today, all 67 counties in Florida now have summer meal programs--up from 38 in 2004.
   • Matched transportation funds raised by summer meal sites that serve five rural north-Florida counties. This will ensure that children there have transportation to and from summer meal sites.
   • Staffed a bilingual, toll-free hotline to direct families to the summer meal site closest to them, and created www.SummerFoodFlorida.org where families can learn more about free summer meal programs and search for nearby sites. In the first month, the hotline received more than500 unique callers; the website averages 1200 unique, first-time visitors per week.
   • Produced and aired a public service announcement (with support from Publix Supermarkets and the Orlando Magic) about the summer meals program.
   • Distributed 25,000 post cards (in English and Spanish) promoting the summer meals hotline and website to central-Florida Workforce (worker training and placement program), SNAP (food stamp) and Medicaid offices, county health and WIC departments, and food banks.
   • Posted fliers promoting the summer meals programs in strategically located bus shelters and Publix Super Market stores.
   • Started developing a pilot program to place EBT terminals at urban Farmers Markets. Currently, only one rural Farmers Market Florida has an EBT terminal.
5. In its early months, End Childhood Hunger Washington posted these accomplishments:
   • Expanded Basic Food (food stamp) eligibility to an expected 23,000 more families.
   • Increased access to fresh produce through farm-to-school programs, farm-to-food bank pilots and farmers markets participating in WIC, Basic Food and senior nutrition programs.
   • Support for 18 rural summer meal programs in high-need areas.
   • Seattle Post-Intelligencer coverage of the Partnership and its work.
6. Our grants to organizations across the country, raised through Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation^®, Share Our Strength's Great American Bake Sale^® and Share Our Strength's Great American Dine Out^®, support our national childhood hunger strategy.

Help us do more to fight this battle that's big enough to be important, yet small enough to win.

Our National Strategy

Share Our Strength's national strategy to end childhood hunger weaves together a net of community groups, activists and food programs to catch children at risk of hunger and ensure they have nutritious food where they live, learn and play.

This strategy, and its supporting 10-Point Plan, are the result of many discussions and much collaboration among leading national, state and local hunger-relief organizations, among them the Food Research and Action Center and other members of the National Anti-Hunger Organizations.

We know we cannot end childhood hunger alone. This is why our approach is to build partnerships with organizations across the country whose interest in ending childhood hunger is as strong as our own.

How We Will End Childhood Hunger

We believe we can end childhood hunger by creating state-based childhood partnerships, granting funds to effective organizations whose work supports our national strategy, expanding Operation Frontline, and increasing our advocacy efforts.

We will have ended childhood hunger when all children have reliable access to nutritious food every day.

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