BECOMING ANTI-RACIST

Thanks for being on our Advocacy Team and for being interested in speaking up for hungry families and individuals. As we highlight in this update there are, in my opinion, some pretty horrible policies coming out of the White House. Significant cuts to food stamps are looming and the new Public Charge policy will make it even more challenging for low-income immigrants. We need to do our best to disrupt and interrupt these policies, as they will hurt food insecure families, particularly families of color.

I’m lucky enough to have attended the Closing the Hunger Gap conference in Raleigh, NC the first week of September. This conference focuses on food justice, not just food insecurity. There is an emphasis on how race and racism impacts our food system and who is hungry in our country. Our participation in this conference two years ago was transformative. Our food bank is now working towards becoming an anti-racist organization. We are starting to not only talk about who is hungry, but why are people hungry. Hunger is a symptom of poverty. Poverty, I believe, is directly related to the systematic and institutional racism that continues in our nation and in our community. The proposed policies that follow will affect low-income families, which means they will disproportionately affect families of color.

Thanks for being part of the BFB Advocacy Team ! If you know of others who might be interested, pass this on so our collective voice can be even louder!

 

-Mike

TAKING ACTION

PUBLIC CHARGE RULING

The Trump Administration's "public charge" ruling will turn the process of applying for US citizenship, which can already be a vulnerable and tenuous process, into an openly classist and racist system. Immigration should be equitable and open, but this ruling will deter those who have utilized public assistance programs for which they are lawfully eligible from pursuing their green card.

Learn more from Statewide Poverty Action Network on public charge here and read Protecting Immigrant Families ' summary on public charge here.

SNAP

"Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility," which allows over 3 million Americans access to food assistance, is key among proposed cuts to SNAP.

You can learn more and add your public comment here by September 23 to show your opposition to harming low-income Americans.

LOCAL ENGAGEMENT

GREEN NEW DEAL

As an emergency food organization, we often reflect on our position in an unjust food system. What is our role as a food bank in changing that system?

Learn more: read an article from Civil Eats about the pathways a Green New Deal could lay out toward hunger relief.