TEFAP Alliance Blog

Foodlinks America - January 16, 2007

In this issue:

• TEFAP Support Sought
• Latinos Face Growing Food Insecurity
• Food Stamp Facts
• Proposed Legislation
• Community Food Applications Requested
• Obesity Round-Up
• Upcoming Events
• USDA to Buy Bonus Grape Juice
• Reports from the Field
• Small Bites

Foodlinks America is published 24 times a year by California Emergency Foodlink in Sacramento, CA and distributed by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting, 6412 CR 116, Burnet, TX 78611; Zy Weinberg and Barbara Vauthier, Editors; email: bvauthier@tefapalliance.org.

Foodlinks America is not copyrighted, so the information can be freely shared with colleagues and friends, though attribution for reprinted articles is appreciated. For archived issues of Foodlinks America, go to: www.tefapalliance.org.
To request a free subscription to the newsletter or to submit story ideas, contact Barbara Vauthier at: bvauthier@tefapalliance.org.

TEFAP Support Sought

A call to action to show support for augmenting The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is being promoted by the TEFAP Alliance. TEFAP is facing a crisis of both food and funds. Program resources are declining even as more hungry Americans turn to emergency food sources to meet their daily needs.

The Alliance is calling on Congress to provide substantial funding increases through the 2007 Farm Bill – $500 million annually in entitlement funds for food purchases and another $175 million annually in entitlement funds for storage and distribution expenses – to address the hunger crisis in this country.

To learn more and to endorse the “Transforming TEFAP – A Call for Action” statement, go to:

www.tefapalliance.org

and click on the “Take Action” button.

Latinos Face Growing Food Insecurity

Nearly one in five Latinos in the U.S. has limited or no access to nutritious food each year, according to a report issued by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) on December 20, 2006. Healthy foods are relatively unavailable in Hispanic communities, barely half of Latinos eligible for the Food Stamp Program are receiving benefits, and citizen children of non-citizen parents do not participate in benefit programs due to immigration concerns, the group said.

“Lack of access to resources is forcing far too many Latino families into choices no one should have to make, such as between having a roof over their heads or putting food on the table. A lack of affordable, nutritious food also has devastating health consequences, such as increasing hunger and obesity, affecting not only the Latino community but the well-being of our entire nation,” stated Janet Murguía, NCLR president and CEO.

The report found that 19.6 percent of Latino households suffer from hunger and food insecurity and that only 51 percent of potentially eligible Hispanics are getting food stamps. The report recommends more outreach to and involvement by community-based organizations in Latino neighborhoods to improve the food safety net. For more details, go to:

http://www.nclr.org/content/news/detail/43414/.

Food Stamp Facts

Participation still climbing upward: In October 2006, national food stamp participation stood at 26,294,464 persons, an increase of 100,399 people over September. Though the overall caseload for October 2006 included nearly 1.4 million fewer people than the prior October, when many Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims received disaster food stamp benefits, it increased by 8.1 million persons more than in October 2001.

More than a refund: Low-income families in three Kansas counties may get a bonus when they go to an H&R Block, Inc. office to file their 2006 income taxes – enrollment in the Food Stamp Program. In a partnership with the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), workers at 45 H&R Block tax preparation sites will help tax filers in Johnson, Leavenworth, and Wyandotte Counties fill out and electronically submit food stamp applications.

“Access to healthy, nutritious food isn’t always easy for low-income families,” said Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat. “There are nutrition assistance efforts out there, but the application process can be daunting, and many families are missing out as a result.”

“We see an incredible opportunity within our client base to help them improve their situations and build better lives,” said Bernie Wilson, H&R Block’s vice president for outreach and business development. The food stamp pilot project is a first step in the company’s plan to build a Benefits Enrollment Network to deliver banking and other financial services to low- and middle-income clients.

Proposed Legislation

Among bills recently introduced in the 110th session of the U.S. Congress are the following:

• House Resolution (H.R.) 45: Introduced by Representative Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and three co-sponsors, the Healthy Foods for Healthy Living Act would authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to make grants to community-based organizations and local redevelopment agencies operating in low-income communities to promote increased access to and consumption of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, and other healthy foods among residents of such communities.

• H.R. 206: Introduced by Representative Jose Serrano (D-NY) and three co-sponsors, the anti-Hunger Empowerment Act would provide greater access to the Food Stamp Program by reducing duplicative and burdensome administrative requirements and authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to award grants to community-based nonprofit feeding and anti-hunger groups for the purpose of establishing and implementing a Beyond the Soup Kitchen Pilot Program for certain socially and economically disadvantaged populations.

• H.R. 292: Introduced by Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and 14 bipartisan co-sponsors, this bill would amend the Farm Bill to increase funding for the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program in steps from $25 million in fiscal year 2007 to $100 million in fiscal year 2010.

For bill summary and status information, along with the text of legislation, visit:

http://thomas.loc.gov and enter the bill number.

Community Food Applications Requested

A request for application (RFA) for the Community Food Projects (CFP) Competitive Grants Program was issued on January 12, 2007. The CFP, which supports projects that help meet the food needs of low-income people, increase the self-reliance of communities in providing for their own food needs, and promote comprehensive responses to local food, farm, and nutrition issues, is a major funding source for community-based food and agriculture projects in the U.S.

Approximately $4.6 million in funds will be available in 2007. There is a two-step process for applicants. Initial Letters of Intent (LOIs) are due by February 13, 2007 and must be submitted by email. Based on a review of these LOIs, some applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal, due by April 13, 2007. The procedures are detailed in the RFA, which is available at the Grants.gov website, at:

http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?oppId=12255&mode=VIEW.

Though LOIs will be submitted by regular email, those invited to submit a full proposal will need to go through a more detailed electronic submission process. Because this process can take up to two months, applicants not already registered with Grants.gov are strongly encouraged to start the registration process as soon as possible at :

http://www.grants.gov.

More information and technical support contacts are available online at:

http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/funding.cfm.

In addition, free assistance on application planning and CFP grant writing is available from the Community Food Security Coalition at :

http://www.foodsecurity.org.

Obesity Round-Up

• You are what your children eat: New research had found that adults in families with children eat more fat and saturated fat than those in childless households. The increasing prevalence of obesity and lifestyle related chronic disease is fundamentally tied to Americans’ poor eating habits; and family environments, including the presence of children, affect adults’ diet behavior, according to the results of a study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine in January 2007.

“The presence of children in the household was associated with significantly higher adjusted total fat consumption for adults and significantly higher adjusted saturated fat consumption,” researchers found. “Adults with children ate many high-fat foods more frequently than adults without children, including salty snacks, pizza, cheese, beef, ice cream, cakes/cookies, bacon/sausage/processed meats, and peanuts.” To learn more, see: http://www.jabfm.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/1/9.

• Obesity higher among Hispanic toddlers: A national study of three-year-olds found that urban Hispanic children are much more likely than Black or White children to be overweight or obese. Researchers examined nearly 2,000 children in 20 U.S. cities and found that though 32 percent of Black and White three-year-olds were overweight or obese, the proportion of overweight or obese Hispanic children reached 44 percent. Results were reported in American Journal of Public Health on December 28, 2006.

Although researchers were unable to explain the differences, factors such as birthweight, taking a bottle to bed, and mother’s weight status were important predictors of children’s overweight or obesity at age three years.

To learn more, go to:

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/AJPH.2005.080812v1.

• Physical activity and childhood obesity assessed: In response to a congressional request on the factors affecting physical activity among children, the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, has released its results of a literature review on the subject. Noting that “childhood obesity is largely the result of a decline in regular physical activity,” GAO examined: demographic factors such as socioeconomic status and race; cognitive and behavioral factors like attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and sedentary behaviors; and community factors such as the built environment and school-based physical activity.

To review the GAO findings, visit:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07260r.pdf.

• Research results tainted by industry bias: Nutrition studies financially supported by the food industry are significantly more likely to produce favorable results than independently financed research, raising concerns about the accuracy of dietary advice, according to an analysis published in the journal PLoS Medicine on January 8, 2007. Examining one particular area of nutrition – nonalcoholic drinks including soft drinks, juices, and milk – researchers reviewed over 500 articles published between January 1999 and December 2003 and coded the outcomes.

The researchers found that, overall, there was a strong association between the type of funding available for these articles and the conclusions that were drawn. Articles sponsored exclusively by food and drink companies were four to eight times more likely to have conclusions favorable to the financial interests of the sponsoring company than articles which were not sponsored by such companies.

“Egregious conflicts occur with both individuals and professional organizations,” commented Kelly Brownell, director of the Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. “Just like we know from studies on tobacco and alcohol and other topics, nutrition research funded by the industry systematically favors industry. Companies would not spend millions of dollars paying scientists if there were no return. “The money buys science consistently in favor of industry,” he added.

For further information, see:

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040005.

Upcoming Events

Several conferences are scheduled in the next few months that may be of particular interest to the Foodlinks America readership. They are:

• 2007 National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference, February 25-27, 2007 in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), America’s Second Harvest, and the National CACFP Forum.

For registration and other information, go to:

http://www.frac.org/Conference/2007/index.html.

• From Cafeterias to Capitol Hill: Growing Healthy Kids, Farms, and Communities, the 2007 Farm-to-Cafeteria and Farm Bill Conference, March 16-19, 2007 in Baltimore, MD, sponsored by the Community Food Security Coalition.

For details, visit:

http://www.foodsecurity.org/CFSC%20Bro.pdf.

• 2007 Annual National Conference of the American Commodity Distribution Association (ACDA), March 28-April 2, 2007 in Orlando, FL.

For further information, go to:

http://www.commodityfoods.org/2007_ANC.php4?PHPSESSID=551faafe84422b32496c433dc566d864.

USDA to Buy Bonus Grape Juice

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on January 12, 2007 that it plans to purchase up to 19.3 million pounds of grape juice as a bonus item for child nutrition and domestic food assistance programs, including The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). USDA will survey potential recipient agencies to determine how much product is desired and can be used before seeking bids from producers for delivery of the juice in the coming months.

Reports from the Field

• Chicago is experiencing increased hunger, poverty, and shortages of food, as the Chicago Tribune reported on December 15, 2006:

Rising housing costs and stagnant paychecks have taken a bite out of Chicagoans’ ability to secure adequate food, placing greater demand on food pantries, according to an anti-hunger group. Requests for food assistance soared 18 percent this year, said the Chicago Anti-hunger Foundation, a non-profit organization that runs 170 food pantries and shelters in the Chicago area. Requests for emergency food assistance from families with children are up 20 percent and requests from seniors have increased by 9 percent.

“I think it’s a crisis,” said executive director Dan Gibbons. “When a mom looks into her pantry and sees that there is not enough food for her family of four, that’s a crisis.” The agency said it is having increasing difficulty securing nutritional, well-balanced food for vulnerable populations, in part because natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina have diverted resources. Adding to the problem is that more people are struggling to make ends meet.

”It really goes back to that fact that people are just simply not making enough money to feed their kids – prices are going up and we find that median household income has absolutely stagnated and is not following the increase in the cost of living,” said Amy Rynell, a director at the non-profit Heartland Alliance. Adjusted for inflation, median income in the Chicago area in 2005 was about $41,015, down more than $2,500 from 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. At the same time, the number of households paying more than 35 percent of income on rent has risen about 23 percent, according to the census.

”The effects of this increase mean we have to prepare more food,” said Bruce Dargin, food service director at Pacific Garden Mission downtown. “Thankfully we have more food to prepare, but I wish more people realized that there are a lot of people out there hungry and a lot more just one paycheck away from being hungry.”

On an average day, Dargin says, he might feed 1,500 people out of his small, busy kitchen. In the crowded eating area, which seats about 120 people, men grab bowls of beef soup and slices of pizza. Although Dargin said he is grateful for pizza and other fast food donated by restaurants around the city, he says that most meals are fresh cooked from scratch at the facility.

Growing demand for food assistance comes on the heels of a February report that showed poverty in the Chicago area is increasing and is far higher than the state as a whole, based on the federal government’s poverty guidelines. One in five Chicago residents is living in poverty – roughly 21 percent of the population – compared with 11.9 percent for the state, according to the 2006 Report on Illinois Poverty, which uses 2004 U.S. census data. The rate of poverty in Chicago has crept up 3.9 percentage points since 2000.

Critics argue that the poverty measure is out of date, which means the reality could be worse than the numbers suggest. According to federal guidelines, a family of four is in poverty when combined income is less than $20,000 a year. “Our research shows that it takes well into the $30,000 a year income-level for a family of four to make ends meet given the high cost of living in the Chicago area,” Rynell said.

Some food pantries and kitchens have struggled to adjust. “There’s a lot more people coming in now than ever before,” said Carrie McCormack, food coordinator for Lakeview Pantry West. “We’re actually trying to not get intimidated by the trends.” McCormack said that her agency has been doing more food drives as opposed to relying on regular donors to try and match the surge in people seeking the week and a half worth of groceries that the agency supplies.

According to Lakeview Pantry records, the amount of food distributed has shot up almost 43 percent since 2004, based on weight. McCormack said she sees new people at the pantry from areas outside of Lakeview because their local food pantries cannot meet the increased demands. Lakeview Pantry, which includes both east and west branches in the city, has started to solicit churches and businesses for specific items that quickly get depleted, McCormack said. “This year we are not seeing the kind of food donation to match the number of folks that are coming in,” she said.

• The challenges of participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) to feed low-income children are detailed in the following article from the December 18, 2006 edition of The Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY:
It’s lunchtime at Lynn Acres Baptist Daycare in southern Louisville, where about a dozen preschoolers are sitting down to a meal of meat, potatoes, fruit and milk. To the hungry kids – from low-income, mostly refugee families – it’s simply a filling meal before naptime. To day-care director Darlene McMillin, it’s the culmination of several hours of record keeping she says is required each day just to get a federal subsidy she needs to buy food.

“I can’t do my job as director because I’m spending so much time on paperwork,” she said. “It just blows my mind.” Day-care directors and child advocates blame increasingly complex and rigid regulations from the state agency that administers the money for low-income kids from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And a nonprofit organization stopped helping many Louisville area day cares fill out the forms in 2003 because officials said the rules jeopardized their agency’s funding.
Community Coordinated Child Care, or 4Cs, said it stopped handling the claims for about 100 centers after state officials said they would hold 4Cs responsible for any mistakes rather than the individual center, as they had before. At least 20 day-care operators left the program after that.

State officials say they simply are trying to meet federal requirements to ensure money is spent properly and expenses are documented. The program last year distributed about $22.3 million to about 670 organizations, mostly ones providing child care, but also to some adult day centers in Kentucky. “We don’t hand that out like it’s Chiclets,” said Paul McElwain, director of the division of Nutrition and Health Services for the state Education Department, which administers the program.
Some directors said they spend two or three hours a day filling out paperwork on daily attendance records, food purchases, amounts served, portion sizes and other details required for monthly reimbursement requests. In some cases, the state exceeds federal requirements, imposing additional rules which operators say add unnecessary work.

Phyllis Brown, owner of Ujamaa Learning Center in Louisville, said she dropped out of the program even though most of her children qualify for the assistance. “I got out,” Brown said. “You had to document every penny, every nickel, every dime, every ounce of food. It was just too much to monitor.” Brown said she still provides home-cooked meals, but without the food subsidy of about $5,000 a month, she’s running a deficit.

That doesn’t sway Denise Hagan, who helps oversee the state program. “You’re not getting much sympathy from me about whether they’re able to do this,” Hagan said. “What we ask them to provide is nothing compared to what some states do.”
Some day-care directors and child advocates say the program has lost sight of the main goal, to ensure that poor children get nutritious meals. They cite instances where Kentucky’s program goes beyond federal requirements – including the state’s insistence this year that all participating centers file claims by computer.

Even federal authorities criticized that requirement in a Nov. 27 evaluation of Kentucky’s program, saying the state may not impose its own rules, such as electronic filing, that deny centers access to the food subsidy program. It said the state should “have a system for accepting paper applications and claims.” McElwain said he hasn’t decided yet whether to do that. Hagan said she’s aware of only three centers that dropped the program because of lack of computer access. McMillin said she had to buy a new computer and pay for Internet access for her small day care in a church basement.

The record-keeping burden worsened in the Louisville area, day-care directors say, after 4Cs stopped administering claims for centers in Jefferson, Oldham and Bullitt Counties. The agency used to visit each day-care center once a month, pick up the paperwork and file claims for a monthly fee. But it stopped, executive director Susan Vessels said, after the state informed 4Cs it would hold it responsible for any deficiencies found at individual centers. Before, the individual center was held responsible and could face sanctions, including being cut from the program.

The 4Cs board decided it couldn’t run the risk of sanctions – which include possible cutoff of its federal funds. State officials said they expect 4Cs to be accountable. Hagan also said that the state identified errors when 4Cs was administering claims. “It was a disservice to the centers,” she said. Day-care providers disagree. “I’ve had to hire someone to take over the paperwork,” said Jacqueline Unseld, who owns three child-care centers in Louisville. She now employs a full-time bookkeeper to do the work. “For years, I went through 4Cs and paid a nominal fee,” Unseld said.

Critics say the state exceeds federal requirements in other areas. For example – though not required by the USDA – the state now has a “milk reconciliation” program where it checks to make sure that centers each month serve the full amount of milk per meal per child. It does that by counting the number of meals served, children who attend and the amount of milk purchased.

Some centers couldn’t document that they had purchased enough milk, but that’s because directors say some children refused it or don’t drink it. But to meet the state monthly “milk reconciliation” they had to buy milk they couldn’t use. Brown said before she dropped the program, her center used to give away or throw away extra milk it had to buy. “We wasted a lot of money just complying with the regulations,” she said. McElwain and Hagan said it’s their job to ensure centers are meeting federal standards for serving milk whether they agree with them or not.

Some directors question another state rule – that centers with evening hours can’t serve the same meal for dinner that they serve for lunch. “That’s another rule that drives us up a wall,” said Diane Zwick, director of Ashland Child Development, a nonprofit agency that operates two centers in Ashland and serves many poor children. Hagan said the state imposed that rule because children “deserve to eat two different meals.”

But only a few children are present for both meals, Zwick said. Most whose parents work in the day leave before dinner, and those whose parents work later hours come after lunch. Still, the center must buy ingredients for two meals a day and prepare two different meals – even though it would be simpler and cheaper to offer the same meal, she said. Zwick said her centers put up with the rules because they need the food subsidy to stay in business. Some children are from very poor families and have little to eat at home. “They don’t eat if they don’t come to us,” Zwick said.

Small Bites

The Department of Food and Agriculture: Since 2001, federal funding for food assistance has increased by more than 50 percent, to $59 billion, accounting for over half of USDA’s annual budget.

Feeding one in five of us: USDA estimates that its nutrition assistance programs reach one in five Americans over the course of a year.

Media madness: The average American spends nine hours a day using media – a television, radio, computer, or iPod – more than any other activity during waking hours.

Sad movies make me greasy: Test marketers have found that someone watching a sad movie eats about 28 percent more buttered popcorn than someone watching a happy one.

Animals are making it hotter: Livestock are responsible for about 18 percent of global warming from methane released through digestion and nitrogen emitted in manure.

And competing for resources: Though livestock consume more food than they yield, 30 percent of the land on the planet is devoted to livestock grazing and feed production.

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