The Half in Ten campaign joined 127 other national organizations last week to urge Congress to pass legislation that is critical to the well-being of our nation’s children. Nearly 1 in 4 children lived in a household struggling with hunger in 2008, and research shows that 1 in 3 are either obese or overweight. That makes it a critical national priority for Congress to reauthorize the nation’s two cornerstone child nutrition laws—the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act—collectively known as Child Nutrition Reauthorization

Contact Congress NOW!

Child nutrition programs such as school meals; the WIC nutrition program for women, infants, and children; and summer and afterschool feeding programs help protect our most vulnerable children from hunger. These programs provide many low-income children with their only fully balanced meal—or sometimes only meal—on any given day.

Write your Senators and Representative!

Congress is running out of legislative calendar days to complete the reauthorization before the bills expire on September 30. If it does not reauthorize the child nutrition laws this summer, millions of children could miss out on improved access to the food they need. Write your members of Congress and tell them that the health of our nation’s children depends on Child Nutrition Reauthorization.

That is why you need to contact Congress TODAY!

Half in Ten’s state partner Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families announced last month that it would be organizing a town hall meeting to discuss issues surrounding poverty in Arkansas. AACF joined with the Legislative Task Force on Reducing Poverty and Promoting Economic Opportunity on a hot July day to welcome almost 50 people at the event. The group was split into two small groups with one focusing on public health and education issues, and the other focusing on business development and community organizing. AACF also participated in a similar event in Dumas, Arkansas, and will work with the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on another town hall meeting later this month.

As Half in Ten’s partner, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families is leading the effort to compile all of these findings from meetings statewide and deliver a report to the governor in November. AACF Executive Director Rich Huddleston serves as the co-chair of this taskforce along with state Sen. Joyce Elliott.

In other news, Rich Huddleston highlighted our Half in Ten campaign work during a panel discussion at the Clinton Presidential Center on July 15, 2010. The group addressed issues of childhood hunger, obesity, and poverty to more than 200 attendees.

The Colorado Half in Ten campaign is currently planning for the upcoming community meeting on real solutions to reducing poverty. The community meeting will present Half in Ten policy solutions and include a discussion on what solutions individuals think would be viable for reducing poverty in their own neighborhoods. This community meeting is planned to be the first of many across the state to get input from diverse communities. 

“What are Real Solutions to Reducing Poverty?” will be held on Monday, August 2 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Blair-Caldwell Library at 2401 Welton Street in Denver. Light refreshments will be provided and child care upon advanced request. To RSVP, contact Bridget Kaminetsky at 303-628-0925 or bridget@9to5.org.

Virginia’s Half in Ten campaign is building momentum. The Blank Street Project is filming roving documentaries of poverty featuring Virginians talking about jobs and homelessness. We started our legislative strategy this month by meeting with state Sen. John Watkins, chairman of the Unemployment Insurance Commission at the Virginia General Assembly, to talk about extending unemployment insurance. The Half in Ten coalition is forming and we have hosted conversations with major partners about collaboration and policy areas on which the Half in Ten coalition will focus.

Two of the lead partners in the Minnesota Half in Ten campaign effort brought their governing boards together this month to talk about how to ramp up efforts to engage Minnesota organizations and people in the Half in Ten campaign. This was a chance for leading nonprofit antipoverty organizations and faith-based social justice groups to talk about how the Half in Ten campaign fits into their state policy work, and how it might interact with their federal allies or parent organizations. We will be approaching those groups and others for their organizational endorsements.

Recently, Katie Couric spoke on CBS News about reauthorization of the Improving Child Nutrition Act and more specifically, the need to improve access to summer meals. Citing a column by Half in Ten Campaign Manager, Melissa Boteach, and Feeding America’s Senior Policy Counsel, Sophie Milam, Couric states that while nearly 20 million children get free or reduced price lunch at school, only 1 in 6 of these children will receive subsidized meals for the summer.

The main obstacles are the shortage of sites where these meals can be served, a lack of transportation to get to these sites, and a lack of funding to for these programs to be sustainable from year to year.

Congress has the opportunity to act this year on a child nutrition bill that would improve access to summer meals among other things. With 1 in 4 children in the US at risk for hunger, Couric urges “last day of school shouldn’t mean last call for lunch.” Half in Ten couldn’t agree more.

For the full column, click here

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Today marks the 48th day that millions of unemployed workers have been left without jobless benefits since Congress allowed them to lapse back in May. 

Write your senator TODAY!

The Senate has scheduled a vote for tomorrow on extending unemployment benefits through November 30, 2010 as a stand-alone bill. Inaction means that 3.2 million unemployed workers will lose access to jobless benefits by the end of the month. Cutting off unemployment insurance can have dire effects on families, as these personal stories show.

Inaction also undermines a nascent economic recovery. In fact, according to the Economic Policy Institute, unemployment insurance has saved 1.1 million jobs since the recession started, increased the number of hours worked by those who already have jobs, and added 1.7 percent to the gross domestic product.

That is why we need you to ACT NOW!

Unemployment across the country is hovering around 10 percent, with low-income communities, youth, single mother households, and communities of color facing disproportionate rates of joblessness.

Senators need to hear from Half in Ten activists that we want them to extend benefits for the unemployed and invest in job creation. We need your help to get the 60 votes to move this bill forward.

Take Action Now. Write your Senator before the vote.

Click here to read the personal story of Terry Hokenson, whose unemployment benefits were cut off.

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A paralegal by training, Terry has been out of work for two years and his unemployment insurance benefits ran out in May.  He has not insisted on staying in the same field and has retrained in electronic health records.  He applies for jobs and the latest has been at a hardware store.

But like many workers in Minnesota, where the number of job seekers outnumbers job openings by 24 to 1 in some regions, there are no job offers.  He gets by on food stamps, depleting his retirement savings and what he calls a hodge podge of short-term assistance. 

He is 62, just old enough for Social Security and has already applied — although he would rather work.  Applying for Social Security early is not good for him:  he will receive lower benefits amounting to only 40 percent of what he was receiving through unemployment insurance. Nor does discontinuing temporary unemployment benefits to Mr. Hokenson and having him turn to permanent social security benefits save the federal government any money.

Here is a link to an interview in one of the local daily newspapers a couple of weeks featuring Mr. Hokenson: http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=118895697

Today marks the 29th day that millions of unemployed workers have been left without jobless benefits as Congress continues to stall on passage of the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (HR4213). The bill failed a third time just last week, unable to get the 60 votes necessary to get through the Senate.

Write your senators today and urge them to act swiftly to extend unemployment insurance and other job-creation measures such as:

Providing State Fiscal Relief in the form of Medicaid, known as FMAP, for another six months Extending the TANF Emergency Fund through FY 2011 to save 205,000 jobs Providing funding for summer jobs for youth

Write your Senator Now!

Virginia advocates are beginning to develop Half in Ten priorities as part of the national campaign to end hunger and poverty in America. They have jumped in with both feet, focusing particularly on faith community partnerships. They deployed a team of videographers in June to document the stories of individuals and families in situational poverty throughout the state. The www.blankstreetproject.com team has been collecting stories of those affected by unemployment, predatory lending, and health care disparities, posting vignettes to their website and garnering media attention for their work. The project will culminate in a documentary film. These stories are a vital way to highlight the reasons that poverty exists and the prescriptions to overcome its grip.

The Virginia Interfaith Center recently named Ali Faruk, one of its leading policy analysts, as the lead staff person on Virginia’s Half in Ten campaign. Ali is developing a multi-year strategy to educate the public and decision makers on the causes of poverty and the ways we can work at both policy and program levels to reduce its power over the most vulnerable families. We look forward to presenting this plan to you in next month’s update.

More than 150 advocates from across the state came to the Interfaith Center’s annual lobby day at the General Assembly, January 19. Noted political blogger and developer of Richmond Sunlight Waldo Jaquith addresses the group at the Holocaust Museum following the morning’s round of legislator visits.