Thursday, January 28, 2010

Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization

Updates and Opportunities for Action

As you doubtless know, Congress temporarily extended the Child Nutrition Act in late September, delaying full reauthorization of the programs into 2010.  As part of this temporary extension, Congress invested in several important one-time initiatives, including some for which CFPA had advocated, such as funding for school meal equipment, demonstration grants for innovation in summer nutrition, and grants to states for CACFP quality improvements.  See this informative summary for more details.

Marker Bills

A handy review of most “marker bills” introduced in Congress to indicate members’ priorities for Child Nutrition Reauthorization was prepared by our friends at FRAC and is available here.  Parts of these marker bills might ultimately be rolled into a comprehensive, final piece of legislation, so they are good indicators of Congressional interest.

Media Articles

Child nutrition, food insecurity, and healthy eating has received much media attention over the past few months.  We provide links to many of these articles in our regular alerts.  Below are a couple of the highlights:

Click here for an article from the Washington Post reporting on a day when USDA provided school commodity foods to lawmakers in Congress.

Also, click here for a recent editorial in the San Jose Mercury News calling for expansions and improvements to the school meals programs.

Updates

The Senate Agriculture Committee and House Education and Labor Committee may pass their Child Nutrition Reauthorization bills this winter or early in the spring.  Quick action might be needed in order to make improvements before the current budget resolution expires in March.  After March, the cost estimates of program expansions and improvements will be higher so even more new money will be required.

This is the most critical time for YOU to let your Congress members and their staff know what are the most powerful changes Congress can make to improve nutrition in your community.  Over the past two years, CFPA has posted survey data, reauthorization priorities from a variety of California stakeholders, and our communications with Congress.  Click here for CFPA's Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization homepage.

Key Message for Congress: More Funding!

Given recent evidence of increased rates of hunger during the recession and the hunger studies to be released by food banks on February 2^nd, the paramount role of the Child Nutrition Act must be to provide more – and better – nutrition to needy children, particularly the lowest-income children, who are eligible but not participating in child nutrition programs.

Congress must increase investments in the child nutrition programs.  In order to make the improvements in benefits, accessibility, and meal quality that California families need, Congress must identify new funding, either through a higher budget allocation or through budgetary offsets within the authorizing committees or revenue committees.

Please call your Representative and urge him or her to make the needed investments in the child nutrition programs to ensure that our low-income kids get the nutrition they need to learn and excel during these tough economic times.  You can also use this easily adaptable letter to send to his/her office.

How to best invest any new resources?

CFPA provided testimony to the House Education Committee in October 2009 to describe the enormous value of expanding enrollment and participation through providing free meals to more low income students.  CFPA also proposes that Congress should fund free meals to all students in schools with high concentrations of low-income students.  In California alone, nearly 1000 schools with nearly 600,000 students might benefit from this change.

The Hunger Free Schools Act includes these important changes that will make a significant, measurable difference in providing free meal benefits to needy students.  This analysis from CFPA estimates that over one million low-income California students will benefit if direct certification is expanded as part of the upcoming Child Nutrition Reauthorization legislation.  In addition, this report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains opportunities to expand direct certification.

Other legislative proposals introduced in Congress that CFPA is excited to see under discussion include:

- Universal Classroom Breakfast Act: creates a federal grants program modeled on the California Department of Education’s incentives to expand participation in the severely underutilized School Breakfast Program.

- Ensuring Year-Round Access to Meals and Snacks: expands the California snack pilot nationwide and offers additional reimbursement to serve meals at community programs.

For more information, contact Matt Sharp, matt@cfpa.net.