THE 2020 CENSUS IS COMING SOON—WILL YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY COUNT?

/0 Comments/in /by

Over the past few months, I have been a member of the Census 2020 “Hard to Enumerate” Sub-Committee in Broward County. The goal of this committee is to raise awareness and improve the census 2020 count by coordinating with human services and non-profit agencies to identify and reach out to hard-to-enumerate populations and increase participation in the census.

When I first joined this committee, it was not readily apparent what role myself or Florida Impact To End Hunger would play, however, over the past couple of months, it became crystal clear how immensely important that every person, including young children are counted in the upcoming census.

I learned that in 2010, the Decennial Census missed over two million young children under age five. Census data is used to allocate over $800 billion a year in federal funding by formula to states and communities. When we miss millions of young children, their states and communities lose proper funding in the programs that help children thrive, like schools, childcare, children’s health insurance, housing, nutrition programs and public transportation for 10 years.

Think about that: the census only happens once every ten years, so if we miss millions of children who are very much in our communities, we will also be missing funding for those millions of children for a whole decade and most of their childhood.

Here are a couple of alarming statistics from the census bureau to consider:

  • 22 million children get free or reduced lunch every day. Census data influences the distribution of the free lunch program.

  • 900 thousand children have a better shot at succeeding in school and life because of Head Start and Early Head Start. Census data influences the distribution of Head Start funds.

Florida Impact To End Hunger mobilizes communities to maximize access to federal, state and local food and nutrition programs. With funding allocations on the line, if we miss young children in the census, it is clear that it has serious consequences for them, their families and their communities.

Young children had by far the highest net undercount of any age group in the 2010 census. I encourage and challenge you to help spread the word about the importance of this upcoming census to your whole community network. Family, pediatricians, childcare providers, family resource and guidance centers, librarians, teachers and faith based organizations!

Sue McAllister

Regional Director of Southeast Florida

Florida Impact to End Hunger

FIVE LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE 2019 SUNSHINE SUMMIT TO END HUNGER

/0 Comments/in /by

At the end of October, I had the esteemed pleasure to spend a couple of days at the Sunshine Summit to End Hunger in Tampa. Florida Impact to End Hunger proudly co-hosted the event with Bread for the World and Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger.

We were joined by hunger advocates from around the Tampa Bay area and worldwide, including Ellen Vollinger of Food Research & Action Center, Florida State Representative Jennifer Webb of District 69 (pictured), author of I Was Hungry: Cultivating Common Ground to End an American Crisis Jeremy Everett, Ankit Kawatra and Srishti Jain of Feeding India, along with Fresh from Florida staff, Florida Department of Health staff, Fresh Access Bucks staff, and many more local heroes.

Learning from veteran advocates gave me a well-rounded view of what hunger looks and has looked like in communities, but also how folks pull together for each other.

Some key take-aways for me were:

1. If you want to be a part of a solution to an issue, you must be living within proximity of it.

2. When applying for a grant or stating a project, always have an exit plan. Meaning, will the vulnerable population you are working with be able to sustain the project after it or the grant is over?

3. If data shows you a vulnerable neighborhood in your area, but you don’t know where to start to help, just ask! Folks know what kind of help they need and they don’t want you to re-invent the wheel to do so.

4. After a study was conducted about community gardens, one grad student learned that kids who participated and worked in a community garden became more socially diverse.

5. If you want to be a part of the solution, find the solution and act!

The Sunshine Summit to End Hunger brought so many of us together with one common goal, and I am very hopeful for the future of Florida as we continue to fight for those in need.

Kelli Greene

Administrative Coordinator

Florida Impact to End Hunger

HEALTHY CORNER STORES FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES | WHAT’S IN STORE

/0 Comments/in /by

Developing our Healthy Corner Stores Project in Miami Gardens over this past year has been such an adventure! We are now on the cusp of bringing all our hard work off the drawing board and into action. As we head into year two of the CDC REACH grant, it seems like a good time to reflect on what we’ve accomplished, and where we’re heading next.

Much of our work up to this point has involved conducting a food environment survey (shout out to intern Shirbrina for all her hard work on this!), researching best practices from similar projects across the country, and developing our store and shopper incentives.

Currently, four stores form our community purchasing group, and we hope to add two more shortly. This group will purchase fresh, high quality produce from Feeding South Florida to sell in their stores to local Miami Gardens residents. This way, traditional convenience stores can offer an affordable, healthy alternative to the less nutritious products they typically sell.

As we move forward with the project, we hope to also address other types of healthy foods beyond produce. Alongside the produce procurement, we are also working to develop a brand and website, so that residents can more easily identify our healthy food retailers. This will be coupled with a marketing campaign and efforts to ensure all the stores are easily accessible by public transit. We are also working with Feeding Florida to bring Fresh Access Bucks to the stores, so that people paying for produce with SNAP can receive coupons to double the value of their SNAP dollars on healthy purchases.

Our goal is to bring all of these incentives together to roll out our healthy corner stores project in the first quarter of 2020. We’re excited to see what this year has in store (pun intended…) for us, and we hope you keep watching our progress as we work to combat food insecurity and food deserts in Miami Gardens.

 

– Sam Hopwood

Regional Director of South Florida

Florida Impact to End Hunger