ATLANTA – Every month is Hunger Month for a handful of state agencies, although September is the official National Hunger Action Month for the rest of us.
The national network of 200 food banks known as Feeding America began pushing eight years ago to shine the light on the issue every September.
“Hunger impacts every community in our nation, preventing millions of families, seniors and children from thriving,” said Matt Knott, president of Feeding America. “This September, we all have a chance to make a difference in the lives of people in need by getting engaged and raising awareness of this very important cause. With the collaborative efforts of the public, private and charitable sector, we can solve this issue.”
Within state government, the programs mostly distribute money the federal government appropriates to the state.
The state and federal governments give schools $600 million to keep the price of lunch affordable. Public schools serve nearly 200 million lunches yearly, seven out of 10 are serviced free of charge to students from low-income families. Another 99 million breakfasts are serviced, and 80 percent of those are free.
Georgia ranks fifth in the nation in terms of students getting free lunches and breakfasts, providing some idea of the scope of the problem.
During the summer, 2.7 million meals are served to low-income, school-age kids through the Department of Education, and another 82 million meals are served annually in 6,000 daycare centers to eligible children through the Department of Early Care and Learning.
The most common program people think of is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps. Although the $280 average monthly support comes through a debit card rather than stamps these days, the program is helping more than 911,000 low-income families buy food, but not alcohol, tobacco, soap, paper products or other non-foods except for vegetable seeds for planting their own gardens. It uses about $3 billion from federal taxpayers that the U.S. Department of Agriculture funnels through the Georgia Department of Human Resources.
A recent partnership with Wholesome Wave Georgia and 37 local farmers’ markets doubles the benefit when fresh foods are bought there by halving the prices for SNAP beneficiaries.
“Our goal is to give low-income families more access to locally sourced fresh fruits and vegetables. Bringing more farmers and farmers markets into the SNAP program will help us reach this goal.” said Erin Swanson-Hall, deputy regional administrator for U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. “Approximately 20 cents of every SNAP dollar spent on food goes directly to American farmers. Installing wireless technology that accepts SNAP at area farmers markets expands the customer base for these markets and increases the local share of the SNAP dollar back into the community.”
The Department of Public Health provides nutrition instruction to help families stretch their personal budgets to satisfy their hunger with wholesome foods, especially pregnant woman and new mothers.
For senior citizens, the state’s Human Resources’ Division of Aging Services provides meals and nutrition counseling two ways. It funds about 3.6 million group meals in senior-citizens centers, and it funds the delivery of another 1.3 million meals to 12,000 home-bound who can’t prepare their own food.
