Washington, D.C. — The Center for American Progress—along with its partners Witnesses to Hunger, the Coalition on Human Needs, the Food Research & Action Center, Feeding America, and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics—launched a day of action today calling on Congress to strengthen child nutrition programs and protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, from further cuts. More than 48.1 million Americans lived in households that struggled against hunger last year, including 15.3 million children.
“Community Voices: Why Nutrition Assistance Matters” features powerful stories from individuals who are experiencing poverty and food insecurity firsthand. From a working mother who relies on the Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, program to provide healthy food for her new baby to a corporate executive who recognizes that access to free meals at school contributed to her academic success growing up, dozens of individuals are part of the project.
“Families struggling with hunger are the real experts when it comes to the importance and effect of these critical nutrition assistance programs that help millions of Americans during periods of economic insecurity and lift them out of poverty,” said Melissa Boteach, Vice President of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at CAP. “Child nutrition programs such as the WIC program; school, summer, child care, and after-school meals, and SNAP are vital to the health and well-being of families across the country, as well as to the overall economy. Too much is at stake for Congress to not protect all nutrition assistance programs this fall during budget negotiations and invest in making them stronger.”
Read their first-person stories online and learn more about the project at http://talkpoverty.org/communityvoices.
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For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, contact Liz Bartolomeo at [email protected] or 202.481.8151.
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