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Legislative Corner:
Farm Bill Update
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a "farm only" Farm Bill that deals exclusively with agriculture, leaving out nutrition programs, specifically SNAP and TEFAP. This is yet another tactic to weaken SNAP. And make no mistake, this maneuver leaves America's largest and most effective anti-hunger program--SNAP--vulnerable, susceptible to deeper cuts and harmful polic y changes. The Senate Ag Committee Chairwoman Sen. Stabenow has stated that they will not pass a bill without the inclusion of SNAP, and the White House has vowed to veto any such bill. SNAP helps put food on the table for more than 1.8 million Pennsylvanians, nearly half of whom are children or seniors. Find out how your member of Congress voted and tell them to protect children, seniors, the disabled, and the working poor from hunger in PA by protecting SNAP!
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State Budget
With only a couple of hours to spare, Gov. Corbett signed into law the Commonwealth's $28.4 billion 2013-14 budget. At $17.438 million, the State Food Purchase Program, which gives counties grants to purchase, process, repackage, transport or store food products, and to distribute that food to soup kitchens, food pantries, homeless shelters, and other charitable food program, appeared to have received a $100,000 increase; however, the fiscal code sets that money aside for another purpose and will not divided amongst the counties. The Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which provides WIC participants and eligible seniors with checks to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets, was once again flat funded at $2.079 million. And the School Food Services, which provides funds for schools to provide school meals to students, received a $762,000 increase at $32.021 million and preserves the state's school breakfast incentive.
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Hunger Garden 
In late April, the Legislative Hunger Caucus' Chairs Senator Mike Brubaker and Rep. Jake Wheatley broke ground on the Capitol Hunger Garden. In its fourth year, the garden provides fresh produce and herbs to the Downtown Daily Bread soup kitchen across the street from the Capitol. Penn State Master Gardeners and volunteers successfully tend the 1,000 square foot garden, which will yield about 1,000 pounds of produce. The garden also serves as a visible reminder that hunger is a very real problem in the Commonwealth, one that requires a bipartisan effort to eliminate.
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Changes at DPW
Last month, the PA Senate unanimously confirmed Bev Mackereth for Secretary of the PA Department of Public Welfare. Mackereth, who had served as Acting Secretary since Gary Alexander's resignation in February, was the Deputy Secretary of the Office of Children, Youth and Families in DPW and the Executive Director of York County Human Services prior to that. PHAC looks forward to working with the Secretary to strengthen SNAP policy and eliminate barriers to access.
There is another change on the horizon--or so it appears. The House voted last month to change DPW's name to the Department of Human Services. And the Senate, in which there is broad bipartisan support for the change, is expected to vote on it in the fall. The change would not only align PA with other states, but also put the emphasis of the valuable work the Department's programs where it belongs--human services and helping the vulnerable, not the stigma of the word "welfare." To urge Gov. Corbett to support this effort, go to Campaign for What Works' website.
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Hunger News:
Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation
 The Food Research and Action Center's annual report Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation reveals that Summer Nutrition programs served fewer than 113,850 low-income children on an average day in July of last summer--only 20% of the number served school meals during the 2011-12 school year. If 40% had been served, PA would have fed an additional 110,838 children and brought in more than $7.7 million more federal dollars to do so. Nonetheless, PA's performance was better than the national rate, reaching only 1 in 7 low-income children. The fact that PA ranks 8th in the country despite its continued low participation rates is discouraging because it means that there are millions of children out there in households struggling to make their food dollars stretch during the summertime. With fewer schools being able to operate summer school programs and therefore a feeding program, community organizations, local government agencies, and places of worship must step up to fill the gap. Becoming a Summer Food sponsor or site is not as difficult as you might think. To find out how, visit PHAC's Summer Nutrition Programs webpage and the PA Department of Education's Division of Food and Nutrition webpage. Even if your organization is unable to sponsor or host a summer feeding site, help get the word out about existing sites so that fewer children in your community go hungry this summer. Sites can be found here or by calling 1-800-331-0129 ext. 537637. Promotional flyers are available here for download and print. Senator Bob Casey understands the importance of growing participation in this program. Read the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader's story on his recent SFSP site visit. |
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Map the Meal Gap
Last month, Feeding America released Map the Meal Gap 2013, which provides estimates of food insecurity for every county and congressional district in America in 2011, extrapolated from CPS, ACS, and BLS data. The report estimates that more than 1 in 7 Pennsylvanians are food insecure--that's nearly 1.9 million people struggling with hunger in PA. An even higher ratio of children in the state--20.5%--are food insecure, representing over half a million. Most striking is that every county in PA is touched by food insecurity, as is evident in the map produced by Feeding America below; at 12.5%, Montgomery has the lowest percentage of children who are food insecure. When looking at everyone, Chester County comes in at 9.5%. Even our "lowest" county rates are high.  |
Spotlight on SNAP Outreach Community Partner:
Perry County Food Bank, New Bloomfield
A member agency of the Central PA Food Bank, the Perry County Food Bank has done a tremendous job in helping us promote SNAP in Perry County. With less than 54% of people under 150% of poverty participating in SNAP, the county's rate is still higher than 46 other counties in the state. The number of Perry County residents participating in SNAP has increased 7.74% since PHAC started its SNAP Promotion project in collaboration with the Central PA Food Bank and its member agencies. Also since that time, 126 Perry County households have been screened for SNAP and an estimated 66 have enrolled in the program, accounting for an estimated 62,018 meals could be attributed to this partnership. "Hunger Action's work on-site in aiding our clients in qualifying for, and then applying for, SNAP has enabled them to better provide for the essential food needs of their families," Director Kiner explains. Located next to the county prison in New Bloomfield, PCFB provides emergency food to families four days a week in addition to the monthly food distributions at 8 other sites across the county, serving over 1,000 households a month. "What's great about John Kiner [PCFB Director] is that he makes you feel like you are family when you're there," Kathy Kupp, PHAC's SNAP Promotion Specialist said. "And he understands that I'm there to help the people in his community just like he is." Click here distribution dates, times, and locations.
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SNAPshot
The chart below shows the number of individuals below 150% of poverty (using ACS 2011 data) compared to the number of individuals participating in SNAP during June 2013 for Forest, Clinton, Huntingdon, Clearfield, Lebanon, Lackawanna, Lehigh, and Delaware County. The percentage given reflects the percentage of people below 150% of poverty who are participating in SNAP. These counties represent 8 of the 9 categories of PA counties based on population size. Graphs for each category can be found online at www.pahunger.org. Statewide, only 64.9% of people below 150% of poverty participated in SNAP in June, equating to nearly 960,000 SNAP eligibles who are not enrolled. Though critical politicians and letters to the editor would paint a picture of rampant abuse of and dependency on SNAP, the number of people participating in the program has begun to decline as the economy slowly recovers and people are once again able to afford groceries (which is exactly as SNAP was designed to work--higher rolls in bad economic times and lower in better times). There are however, as is evident in the graph below, still many who are likely in need and eligible but not participating. Through pushing for improvements to accessibility and outreach efforts, advocates across the state are working every day to narrow this gap. Check each edition of the PA Hunger e-Advocate for a new look at SNAP data.  |
What's New with PHAC
Hellos
Last December, PHAC's Board of Directors elected Susan A. Moore to serve as its new President. Ms. Moore is the CEO of the Community Action Agency of PA, which acts as a statewide voice for local Community Action Agencies and low-income citizens. It is the primary source of advocacy, education, technical assistance, news and networking for the Community Action network of Pennsylvania. The Board also elected Elaine Livas with Project SHARE to serve as the Vice-President, Kendall Hanna (former CEO of the Central PA Food Bank) as Treasurer, and Steve Chopek with the PA Housing Finance Agency as Secretary. New members include Joe Arthur (current CEO of the Central PA Food Bank), Ken Regal with Just Harvest, Elizabeth Peroni with the PA Food Merchants Association, and Jim Nace with Brown Schultz Sheridan & Fritz, CPA.
Goodbyes After five years of dedicated service as PHAC's Board President, Tim Whelan stepped down in December but will continue to serve on the Board for the duration of 2013, at which point he will have served for seven years. Tim is currently the VP of Community Impact at the United Way of the Capital Region and an adjunct professor at Temple University.  One Great Lunch
This year's One Great Lunch with 9 Great Chefs was a success! Over 170 attendees enjoyed a four course meal at the Harrisburg Hilton and Towers while watching 9 of the area's best chefs demonstrate how to prepare each course.
A big thank you to the chefs who make this event all that it is: Chef Roebuck, Chef Gipe, Chef Reis, Chef Byrem, Chef Long, Chef Dapp Harris, Chef Harris, Chef Graham, and Chef Mishler. And also the Cumberland Valley High School's CVTV staff and students for their AV assistance.
We would also like to thank our generous sponsors: 2013 Hunger Champion Weis Markets, Platinum Sponsor Giant Food Stores; Silver Sponsors PA Food Merchants Association, the Hershey Company, the PA Restaurant & Lodging Association - Central PA Chapter; and Brozne Sponsors Highmark Blue Shield, PA Housing Finance Agency, and Brown Schultz Sheridan & Fritz.
And thank you to all of you who were able to attend or who contributed. We hope to see you next year!
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