food and nutrition

Increasing participation in the Summer Food Service Program isn’t always easy.  There are no silver bullets or magic spells.  Being successful also doesn’t require fancy outreach materials that break the bank.  The secret, according to the Food Bank of Delaware, is hard work and creativity.

The winds of winter may still be blowing where you live, but it is already time to start thinking about the summer.  When school is finished, over 20 million children who receive free or reduced-price lunch during the school year through USDA’s National School Lunch Program will be in trouble.  Less than 3 million kids participate in our summer feeding programs.  We want to make sure that no child in the U.S. goes to bed hungry, whether school is in session or out.  We can only do that with your help.  Your organization can get free meals for kids this summer by being a site or sponsor in the Summer Food Service Program.  SFSP is a federally funded program administered by states that reimburses organizations for meals served to children during the summer.

Breakfast matters!  And starting the day on a nutritious note enables our children to learn better and acquire the energy needed for academic success.

To amplify that message, this week USDA celebrates School Breakfast Week to ensure our nation’s children have the best opportunity to prosper in school and in their futures.

Bananas Waldorf, whole wheat garlic breadsticks, bulgur chickpea salad, deep dish apple cranberry pie—what do all of these foods have in common?  They’re all tasty, affordable, healthy, and part of the SNAP-Ed Connection’s Recipe Finder database.

Nutrition educators everywhere know that there is one surefire way to make classes more fun and engaging: just add food! The SNAP-Ed Connection Recipe Finder helps nutrition educators to do just that as they teach low-income families how to prepare healthy, affordable, and delicious foods.

The winds of winter may still be blowing in many parts of the country, but it is already time to start thinking about the summer.   20 million children receive free or reduced-price lunch during the school year through USDA’s National School Lunch Program. For many children, school meals are the only complete and nutritious meals they eat, and in the summer they go without.  22.3 million children are at risk of going hungry when the school year ends and school lunches are no longer available.

USDA took one step closer to ending hunger in America today with the announcement of 14 Hunger-Free Communities Grantees.   The important goal to end hunger and improve domestic nutrition is a top priority for the Obama administration, and an aspiration our innumerable partners have rallied around.

Those commitments from non-profit and faith-based organizations, state and local governments, private industry, and from the public to end hunger in their communities is nothing short of amazing. It’s a movement that has gained strength, in part because it’s an achievable goal.  It’s also becoming clear that if we work together to ensure our nation’s hungry people have access to nutritious foods, much headway can be made on the front.

As this blog is being posted, I am down in Miami at Sedano’s Supermarket with local business leaders, retailers and community members to unveil a new consumer resource that will help families in need gain access to healthy food.  I am pleased to unveil the Spanish-language version of the SNAP Retail Locator, an online search tool to help Spanish-speaking recipients locate an authorized Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)  store near their home or workplace.

USDA is committed to improving access to SNAP and providing vulnerable participants with information to make more informed shopping choices. And this innovative new tool will make it easier for SNAP participants, especially those who may be new and unfamiliar with the program, to gain access to the nutritious food they need.

Before kicking off this year’s ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ college tour in North Carolina, I took a moment to reflect on why these college visits are so important. As President Obama said in his State of the Union address, we must out-educate the world in order to win the future.  Indeed, during the eight years that I spent as a college professor, I was constantly reminded that investing in our nation’s young minds is investing in our nation’s future. With this in mind, this year, members of USDA leadership will join the Secretary and myself in engaging America’s youth in a critical dialogue about our food system, our rural economy, and the economic opportunities associated with local and regional markets.

The Fruit and Vegetable Programs of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is intensifying its educational outreach campaign to the industry and consumers.

Customers regularly refer to the Fruit and Vegetable Programs as the “best-kept secret in the produce business” because valuable resources are often underutilized.  The program maintains a lot of beneficial information for the industry, but we had to find different ways to present it.  To improve transparency, we embarked on a communication campaign that now offers an industry newsletter, a series of webinars, and enhancements to our website.

Each summer, 22.3 million students are at risk of going hungry when the school year ends and school lunches are no longer available.  For many children, school meals are the only complete and nutritious meals they eat, and in the summer they go without.  The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) can help to fill the summer meal gap for low-income children.  Faith-based, community and private non-profit organizations can make a difference in the lives of hungry children by serving meals with SFSP, a federally funded program administered by states that reimburses organizations for meals served to children during the summer.