State Budget Passed- Major Cuts to Come

2011 WA State Legislative Session Comes to a Close Eager to find a bi-partisan budget solution, state legislators came to an agreement and passed the 2011-2013 biennial budget officially ending the special session on it's final day. At around 10pm the $32.2 billion state operating budget reached the Governor's office. Here is how hunger-relief programs fared: • The State Food Assistance program became a high profile issue early on in the session. With so many people responding negatively to the elimination recommended by Governor Gregoire, lawmakers worked hard to get the program back to 50% funding. While this drastic cut will still have devastating effects for the individuals and families that rely on these benefits, funding at half is better than losing these benefits entirely. The program was cut by $30 million. • The WIC Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program provides benefits for women with infants and children to use to purchase food at their local farmer’s markets. This helps ensure that mothers and their children have access to nutritious foods and brings in federal dollars that our state cannot afford to lose. This program was saved from elimination but was cut by $420,000. The program will continue in the second year of the biennium with the $100,000 provided. • School Meals are sometimes the only meals that low income children eat throughout their day. Cutting funding for School Meals means cutting into the health of the next generation. Unfortunately school food services were cut by $6 million. However funds will be available to cover breakfast and K-3rd lunch copays (for those not quite qualified for free meals) as well as summer and breakfast grants and reimbursements. • Maternity Support Services, which has a physical connection to WIC as they are often offered in the same location, has been cut by $12 million. With a 50% reduction proposed by the Governor this 25% reduction is an improvement. • Strong funding will continue for the Department of Agriculture Emergency Food Assistance Program. This is an essential program that keeps the lights on and the shelves stocked at food banks and meal programs and we will continue to keep our lawmakers educated on the importance of these benefits. Take Action! While these cuts will have real impacts, there are victories to be recognized. Our lawmakers worked hard this session to pass a budget without eliminating many important hunger-relief programs. Please take a minute to send a thank you to your legislators for their hardwork. We will continue to educate them on the important role that these essential programs play in the lives of Washingtonians, and encourage them to restore the cuts in the future. CLICK HERE

more about fll advocacy Advocacy Opps. Join our Advocacy Team! Take Past Actions tell others about delivery time!

* Information provided by Food Lifeline

Meet Our Members- Downtown Food Bank

Tucked just below one of Seattle's greatest land marks is the Downtown Food Bank. You can have lived in Seattle your whole life and visited Pike Place Market hundreds of time without even knowing that just below your feet is a successful food bank. With a dedicated group of volunteers on hand, the Downtown Food Bank opens its doors Tuesdays and Thursday from 10:00-1:00 without fail. Last year alone they "handled approximately 45,000 visits and provided more than 269 tons of groceries to the elderly, homeless and working poor within the Pike Place Market and downtown Seattle communities". Their space on the 5th floor of a parking garage is utilized well with an organized storage area, multiple freezers and client shopping area.
When speaking with Kevin Futhy, the food bank manager, he spoke highly of his volunteers and their desire to maintain the dignity of each individual who walks through their doors. The food distribution area is set up specifically to make a visit to the food bank feel similar to shopping at the grocery store. Food was displayed in an appealing manner, as friendly volunteers excitedly waited to help clients. The atmosphere was warm as Kevin greeted every volunteer by name and directed them to their positions.
Below are some photos of the Downtown Food Bank in action.....

View from outside the food bank

Some wonderful volunteers from allrecipes.com

To learn more about the Downtown Food Bank and the Pike Place Market Foundation, please visit: http://www.pikeplacemarketfoundation.org/aboutus/foodbank.shtml

"Gleaning by definition, is collecting what remains."

Recently a guide of best practices and creative ways hunger relief programs can access farmers markets was released by AmeriCorp & Rotary First Harvest. This unique and useful guide to market gleaning gives step by step procedures on how to collaborate with farmers markets to end hunger.

The handbook gives 8 steps to successful market gleaning including...
1. Contacting Market organizations
2. Developing volunteers
3. Creating Materials
4. Plan logistics (such as transportation)
5. Nutrition
6. Communication
7. Document with pictures throughout process
8. Finalize gleaning report and appreciate those involved

According to the handbook, preparations for gleaning begin several months before markets are open. Contacts must be in place and proper directions give to those who will be picking up produce and delivery it to proper locations. Volunteers must be recruited, trained properly to ensure safety, and make sure they all sign a release form. The handbook also emphasizes that once market season has begun to remain in constant contact with market staff and keep tight records of farm donors contact information and history. When market season ends, throw a large celebration for all those involved to show your appreciation.
This guide is a wonderful tool for any hunger relief organizations interested in gleaning at farmers markets. Below is the link to the full document. Enjoy!

http://www.jfsseattle.org/pubs.html

Important Information About Donated Food From Hunters

Click here to read an article about the dangers of venison donations given the chance of lead poisoning from shotgun pellet fragments, even when the game has been professionally butchered. Important information to be considered for food banks accepting these donations as well as donors of wild game.

TEFAP Threatened By Federal Congress

The Emergency Food Assistance Program

The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) offers a high volume of nutritious food to help fill the shelves of the food banks and meal programs we serve in Western Washington, and throughout the country. However, with the pressure to secure a balanced budget, our federal lawmakers are considering significantly cutting those fundamental resources from hunger-relief work.

Our federal lawmakers are in the thick of budget negotiations. It is important for us as hunger-relief advocates to speak up for these essential resources now to educate our legislators on the devastating impacts of cuts to basic resources like TEFAP.

Over the past three years there has been strong support for TEFAP with the funding provided in the 2008 Farm Bill. However, threats to this program include an enormous 50% reduction in available food for fiscal year 2011. This decline in food will soon be felt as the summer months quickly approach, which is a time when more families rely on food bnaks to help feed themselves and their children because they can no longer depend on school breakfast or lunch programs.

Take Action!

You can help! Send a message to your federal lawmakers today and tell them to secure funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program. Make your priorities known to help secure basic funding for hunger-relief.

CLICK HERE

LEARN MORE ABOUT FLL ADVOCACY

Advocacy Opps. Join Our Advocacy Team!

Check out QuickBites! *Information provided by Food Lifeline

Meet Our Members- Vashon Maury Community Food Bank

On an island in the Puget Sound you will find a food bank rich in history, volunteer commitment and community support. The Vashon Food Bank serves up to 200 families each week, nearly 10% of the population, through a single distribution day. Two- thirds of Vashon food bank clients are either seniors or children, all of which benefit from the produce being delivered from farms only a few miles away.

A Pilot Farm project has been successfully underway for the past year, producing a variety of organic fruits and veggies to the food bank clients. All ages are invited to come volunteer cultivating the quarter acre farm located on the Maury Island. The benefits even spill over to other food banks as they write, “Our efforts have allowed us to not only provide food for our clients, but also to the White Center food bank. We are sending our truck filled with beets, spinach, and cabbage across the sound, feeding even more hungry families with our plentiful harvests”. The farm produces mainly throughout the summer and takes a rest during the winter.

Year round the food bank supports a small gardens located behind the distribution center. Plants such as kale, garlic, chard and some herbs are harvested in the off-season to ensure clients are receiving vital nutrients beyond the summer months.

“There’s a lot of empowerment in being able to grow your own,” she said. “For me, the vision of a garden has always been a way to bring people together and feel good in so many ways. I dreamed of someday being able to create something at the food bank site that could draw people together”- Yvonne Pitrof, Executive Director of Vashon Food Bank.

National Letter Carrier’s Food Drive – Let’s Stamp Out Hunger

The 2011 Letter Carrier’s Food Drive, to stamp out hunger, is scheduled for this coming Saturday, May 14, 2011. Make sure that you mark your calendar.
WFC Member Agencies all over Washington State will be the recipients of the community donations to the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. Your local postal carrier will pick up the food you leave by your mailbox on Saturday, May 14^th. The U.S. Postal Service is making it very easy to get involved; you just have to get it down to your mailbox.
Spread the word-it doesn’t get any easier to help than this!

Postmasters are stressing that people should put their food donations out early Saturday to insure that their packages are picked up.

This is an incredible donation day for food banks across the state. Please put out non-perishable foods that are not beyond their expiration date by your mailbox. Giving can be contagious so let’s talk to our neighbors and make a big statement across the state.

Here is a video of why community support is so important. The woman speaking uses one of the food banks in Western Washington. They have a family of six and a newborn. They just missed qualifying for food stamps.

Watch on YouTube

Thank you and thanks to the postal workers who make it all possible.

Great Tool: Food Desert Locator

Click here to access a great tool to identify food deserts across America.

Definition of food desert: A food desert is a district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants.

Update from AHNC: Special Session in Olympia; ACTION ALERT for Federal SNAP

Lawmakers in Olympia are continuing to work through the special session to reconcile the final state budget- their work is not done and neither is ours! Continue to contact your lawmakers on behalf of hunger relief programs, and urge people in your networks to do the same. If you need help finding your state reps, click here. 

Action Alerts:

Federal action –

SIGN ON TO PROTECT SNAP: As you know, we’ve been keeping a close eye on Congressional changes made by the House budget to SNAP(food stamp program) that would convert SNAP into a block grant and cut funding by $127 billion over ten years.

At the WRAHC meeting in Oakland this week, FRAC staff asked advocates to circulate this letter widely to get as many sign-ons as possible by May 9. This letter will be the main initial advocacy vehicle to protect SNAP in the upcoming debt-limit and budget debates on Capitol Hill. More than 50 Vermont organizations have signed on, so Washington needs to catch up! Please ask your own agency and your partners to sign on now. 

It’s incredibly important that Congressional leaders hear our message to protect SNAP from budget cuts and policies that weaken the program’s ability to help the hungriest and neediest people.

Please sign on your organization to the letter to Congress that national, state and local groups are circulating to protest the House budget.  DEADLINE for signatures: Monday, May 9

Your organization can sign the letter by clicking the link here.

State actions –

School Meals: Contact your state lawmakers and ask them to fund School Meals at House budget levels in the final budget.  This will help our schools provide students with nutritious meals during the school year and over the summer.

WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program: Let your lawmakers know that you support the Senate budget for WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which transfers $100,000 from the first year of the budget to the second and allows the program to continue by drawing down critical federal funds. (The House budget did not include the fund transfer in the second year, eliminating the program altogether.)

Program Updates:

State Food Assistance Program

The Senate budget includes a $16 million cut in the second year, reducing benefits to 50% for recipients.  A lawsuit has been filed and until it is resolved the state is prevented from reducing SFA.  There is proviso language attached that would allow the benefit to be cut to 50% if the lawsuit’s eventual ruling allows that.

The Governor’s budget eliminated benefits for SFA (reduction of $60m.)  The House budget calls for a $30m cut, which would result in SFA benefit levels at half the federal level, but no changes to eligibility guidelines.

WSDA Emergency Food Assistance Programs

The WSDA food assistance programs (including EFAP and TEFAP) are funded at $10.6 million in both the Senate and House budgets.

For more information on hunger relief programs in Washington click here.

Member Events:

Children’s Alliance Voices for Children Awards Luncheon- Don't miss the Children's Alliance 2011 Voices for Children Awards Luncheon. Celebrate CA’s successes for kids and fuel the challenges ahead. For more info, click here.

Washington Food Coalition Harvest Against Hunger Area Summit- The first Harvest Against Hunger Area Summit will be held on September 14th in Wenatchee, WA at the Wenatchee Convention Center.  The event will take place from 2pm-6pm.  As part of a grant from the WSDA Food Assistance Programs, WFC’s role is to coordinate 4 Area Summits across Washington to bring the emergency food community together with local specialty crop farmers and their commissions to help these groups learn how their businesses intersect and potential options for growth. For more info, click here.

Do you have an upcoming event? If you have upcoming hunger relief events around Washington, send us the details and your event will be added to the online event calendar. Email Sakara at ahnc@wsahnc.org

Reminders:

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! The next AHNC Membership Meeting is June 14^th at 2:30pm, location TBD.

--

                         www.wsahnc.org                   

                              253-394-2787 

                       ahnc@wsahnc.org

                       

Seattle seeking sites for summer food program

The Seattle Human Services Department is seeking sites for its Summer Food Service Program. The program will be offered again this summer from Monday, June 27th to Friday, August 26th 2011. The program provides no-cost breakfasts, lunches and snacks for children and youth ages 1 through 18. The meals are served to children at approved sites where at least half the children are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches. For information about eligibility please click here. To apply, an agency must complete and return an application form as soon as possible. The City will screen applications to ensure the availability of food wherever concentrations of eligible young people live. For more information, please contact Javier Pulido, Program Coordinator, Seattle Human Services Department, at 206-386-1140 or javier.pulido@seattle.gov.