For Immediate Release: 11/21/16
Contact: Jack Waite, 512-658-5223 or jwaite@feedingtexas.org
Statement Attributable to Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas
The holiday season is traditionally a time when our communities and the nation come together to look after our neighbors in need. On behalf of Feeding Texas, our Board of Directors, and our twenty-one member food banks, we wish to express our gratitude for this outpouring of support.
Yet hunger is a year-round phenomenon that doesn’t just strike during the holidays. In fact, childhood hunger spikes in the summer (when school is out). This is why addressing hunger must be a year-round cause built on the bedrock of our nation’s commitment to ending hunger.
Far too many people in this country – forty-two million, thirteen million of them children – live in households struggling with hunger. In Texas, one in six households struggles to afford food, including one in four Texas children.
This problem would be far, far worse were it not for our nation’s profoundly effective and efficient anti-hunger programs: SNAP, also known as food stamps; school meals; the Child and Adult Care Food Program that pays for nutrition in child care, Head Start, afterschool programs and shelters; the summer food programs; WIC; and finally TEFAP, which provides surplus commodities to our food banks.
We give thanks for these national programs that reduce hunger and poverty, improve health and learning, improve productivity, create jobs and economic growth, and strengthen our communities.
We also give thanks to the Texas Legislature, for their support of our fresh produce program “Feeding with Impact.” Through this partnership with the Texas Department of Agriculture, our food banks rescued fifty million pounds of produce last year to nourish needy Texans.
These programs help many who are struggling: seniors, children, people with disabilities, veterans and active duty military families, low-paid workers, unemployed and underemployed adults, and others.
Shortly after this holiday season ends, the new Congress and President-elect Trump will be sworn in and begin making key decisions. We call on them to recommit America to one of our most important, bipartisan and widely agreed-upon beliefs – that nobody in our nation should go hungry.
We call on them to protect the federal nutrition programs, fully fund them, and take steps to assure that all hungry people in our country have access to the nutrition they need to live a healthy, active life. We will be proud to work with them to achieve this goal.
Happy holiday season!