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

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

On a warm September morning in 2019, I joined some members of the food system community in north Florida during the North Florida Crop-Up event hosted by Feeding Florida to discuss ways to get fresh, local produce on dinner tables in our areas. Partners like Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service’s Fresh From Florida and Food Recovery Program, UF-IFAS’s Family Nutrition Program, Red Hills Online Farmers Markets, Frenchtown Farmers Market, Florida Farmers Market Association, and farmers from around the panhandle gathered at the Leon County UF-IFAS extension office.

The Feeding Florida staff veggie-punned their way through a detailed agenda and provided a broad picture of the food system opportunities that could greatly benefit our community. From opportunities like Fresh Access Bucks at farmers markets that accept SNAP, to how to add the Fresh From Florida logo on products, to even discussing natural disaster recovery, no stone was left unturned.

A vegetable-packed lunch was served and gave time for connections to be made between community members. I was able to connect with a city employee serving with the Southside Farmers Market and discuss the need for healthy corner stores on the south end of Tallahassee. He was very interested in learning more about the project, and I have since reached out to his office in hopes to discuss a future project.

We broke out into groups of interest where I was paired with other community nonprofit/grant-funded folks where we discussed the Map the Meal Gap, a report on food insecurity and county food cost in the United States. Tools like these are very useful when speaking to our elected officials about needs in our communities, especially when programs could soon be cut, hurting the most vulnerable. The need for more advocates grows as the proposals for more cuts are written.

Will you work with us to insure access to fresh, local, nutritious food in our communities?

– Kelli Greene

Administrative Coordinator

Florida Impact to End Hunger

For the past two summers, thanks to the Seeing the World program funded by the Children’s Services Council of Broward County, I have had an opportunity to witness the big, bright smiles on the faces of children receiving a new pair of free glasses, just in time for the start of school. It is such a rewarding experience to watch their excitement, picking out and being fitted with their shiny new pair of specs at their local Summer BreakSpot site. The parents were so appreciative as well.

I am thrilled to report that 160 children were able to take advantage of this service. Think about it: these children, whose families may have otherwise not been able to cover the high cost of vision care, get to start the new school year being able to see the chalkboard and read books without being hindered by poor vision.

A big thanks goes out to Dr. Adam Cherry and his team for the caring way they provided thorough exams and vision services to our Summer BreakSpot kids this year. It’s a win-win for everyone!

 

– Sue McAllister

Regional Director of Southeast Florida

Florida Impact to End Hunger

Working on the Live Healthy Miami Gardens Project has been great! By unpopular opinion, surveying has been an awesome experience and has also helped build momentum for the project. People grew their interest in the project and it brought more attention to their health decisions. It was interesting to see people’s interpretations of our project’s goal and how they related it to their own lives. Traveling from universities to stores and to local parks has shown me the intensity of surveying, however, it is a great technique to reach as many people as possible!

I also participated in the recruiting local stores for the project. This uncovered which businesses are motivated to give back to the community and also introduce more healthier options in the stores. Some owners were more willing than others, but this is only the beginning.

We came up with a list of amazing stores that showed interest in participating in the Live Healthy Miami Gardens project. It was great to hear the owner’s concerns about stock, price, and quality.

Our efforts are going to help build a relationship with store owners and in turn improve their relationship with the community. I look forward to the future success of working with the City of Miami Gardens and Florida Impact to End Hunger!

#teamstories