no kid hungry campaign

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog:

Today marks day two in the first ever National Summer Food Service Program Week, a weeklong awareness campaign to promote USDA’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and other programs nationwide to feed low income kids.

Lots of things are happening around the country this week to help feed more hungry children this summer.  For example today is National Hunger Awareness Day – as designated by the U.S. Senate in a bipartisan resolution. This is very fitting, given that at least 17 million children in the United States face a higher risk of hunger in the summer. Also today Agriculture Secretary Vilsack joined Jeff Bridges, Share Our Strength founder Bill Shore, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and others to launch Virginia’s No Kid Hungry Campaign at Barcroft Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia.

Big things are going on in the Southwest region of the U.S. when it comes to feeding families.  USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service partnered with the No Kid Hungry Campaign lead by Share Our Strength and Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe. Earlier this month, we met to discuss strategies to help this campaign meet its goal of increasing participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Summer Meals in Arkansas.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of work to be done as we are seeing more and more people struggling to put food on the table but through our partnerships we hope to make a difference one community at a time.