Brown Pushes for Hunger Free Schools Act

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Following New Report from USDA Showing Unprecedented Rise in Hunger, Brown Emphasizes Need to Enroll More Children in Nutrition Programs

November 17, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Hunger, Nutrition and Family Farms, attended a hearing today of the Senate Agriculture Committee entitled, "Opportunities to Fight Hunger and Improve Child Health."

Brown emphasized the need to pass his Hunger Free Schools Act, which would help enroll more students who qualify for nutrition assistance in the school lunch program by increasing the program's efficiency through technology improvements and paperwork reduction.

"With the difficult economic climate in Ohio, the number of school children utilizing the free and reduced price meals as well as summer and afterschool programs has increased markedly this year," Brown said in his statement. "Yesterday's news that more children and families were food insecure last year than the year before-almost 15 percent- was sobering and I hope it will serve as a wake-up call for us to get serious about reducing hunger."

On Monday, The United States Department of Agriculture released its annual report on Household Food Security in the U.S., which can be viewed here. The report showed that 17 million households, or 14.6 percent of our nation, experienced hunger and "food insecurity." These 2008 figures represent the highest rate of food insecurity since these surveys were initiated in 1995. According to the report, more than 500,000 families experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year.

At today's hearing, Brown pointed to the report as another reason to pass his Hunger Free Schools Act. In June, Brown introduced this legislation to improve and expand access to the school lunch program for needy children. This legislation would promote direct certification, whereby children enrolled in the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) are automatically eligible for free school lunch. It would also reduce paperwork and administrative costs, and utilize technology. Specifically the legislation would:

• Improve state performance in enrolling eligible children in school lunch program by setting a performance standard (reaching 95 percent of students required to be directly certified for school lunch programs) and providing incentives to high performance schools;

• Expand access to child nutrition programs by requiring school districts to utilize data from Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program to directly certify more students for free school meals; and

• Achieve universal access for high poverty schools by allowing schools or districts serving a high proportion of low-income children to offer free lunches to all students.

Below is the full text of Brown's statement:

Study after study has indicated that access to healthy, nutritious foods is critical to our children's health and educational development. Yet as recent reports show, too many families are going hungry, too many students eligible for free school lunch are slipping through the cracks, and too many babies are being born at dangerously low birth weights.

That's why today's hearing is so important. We can address each of these issues through the legislation we're here to talk about today, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization.

This bill is a down-payment on the future success of our children. This bill would help increase the enrollment and improve the quality of food in the national school lunch program. It would ensure that more at-risk women are participating in the WIC program and increase the number of sites that provide food to children when school isn't in session.

Nearly every day millions of school children - from large cities like Cleveland and Cincinnati to rural areas like Gallipolis and Greenville- participate in the National School Lunch Program. With the difficult economic climate in Ohio, the number of school children who utilize free and reduced price meals as well as summer and afterschool programs has increased markedly this year. But we need to do more to enroll students in school nutrition programs.

In response to this obvious need, earlier this year, Senators Casey and Bennet joined me in introducing the Hunger Free Schools Act to help states and school districts directly certify more students into the school lunch program. This legislation would make it easier for eligible students to enroll in the school lunch program by utilizing current technology and existing data to reduce our reliance on paper applications.

A recent USDA study on direct certification rates found that my state of Ohio had the single largest improvement of any state: from 34 percent of eligible students enrolled in the school lunch program without paper applications in the 2007-2008 school year to 67 percent last school year. By closing this gap even further-which I know we will continue to do in Ohio-children who need this program the most will receive the nutritional food they need to succeed. At the same time, paperwork and administrative burdens will be reduced for families and school administrators.

This Congress has already made a beneficial investment in our children's health by reauthorizing the Children's Health Insurance Program, a bipartisan initiative that has increased enrollment rates among children throughout the country. However, there is still much work to be done.

By reauthorizing the child nutrition bill and finally passing broader health care reform, we can make further progress. Though we often focus on the insurance provisions in health reform, that bill will also make important investments in wellness and prevention programs that can lower obesity rates, reduce infant mortality, and help our children manage chronic diseases like diabetes.

These goals are consistent with the nutrition bill we're discussing today. Yesterday's news that more children and families were food insecure last year than the year before-almost 15 percent- was sobering and I hope it will serve as a wake-up call for us to get serious about reducing hunger.

Source: Senator Sherrod Brown