Contact: Christy Felling, cfelling@strength.org
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, the White House is hosting a national conference focused on building a new National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. This conference brings together stakeholders from across the country, including anti-hunger and nutrition advocates, local non-profits, the health care community, corporate leaders, and more. The end goal is a national plan to end hunger in the United States by 2030.
Share Our Strength is proud to participate and support this conference. Founder and Executive Chair Billy Shore and CEO Anne Filipic will be in attendance; we are also announcing the following commitments, which allow us to play an active role in the work ahead.
- Nutrition programs run by schools and community partners are essential to ending childhood hunger. Share Our Strength is proud to join the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health with our commitment to providing $500 million in support to strengthen programs that feed children. We will have a particular focus on underserved communities and communities of color, ensuring all children have the three meals they need to thrive, 365 days of the year.
- By 2030, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the anti-hunger nonprofit, Share Our Strength, commit to offering training to all 67,000 AAP member pediatricians on both screening for nutrition insecurity and referring patients to federal and community nutrition resources. AAP will also evaluate its training by tracking its members’ comfort discussing food insecurity, members’ nutrition insecurity screening rates, and the outcomes of pediatrician referrals.
“Hunger remains one of our nation’s most solvable problems,” said Shore. “The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health will help build the political will to achieve this and bring together diverse perspectives, experiences, and knowledge in pursuit of a stronger, healthier nation with more opportunity for all. The national strategy that emerges, especially with its focus on children, has the potential to create unity in our too-often divided country.”
“For this nation to build a healthy, educated, equitable future, we must address the wellbeing of our children,” said Filipic. “And we know what works. Recent data clearly shows the impact that programs and policies can have in dramatically reducing both child poverty and hunger. To achieve lasting change, however, we must collectively prioritize this work and commit to action.”
Along with our commitments as part of the White House conference, Share Our Strength has also identified five timely, actionable policy changes that can drive change and improve nutrition access for families, so every child can have a healthy start in life.
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About No Kid Hungry
No child should go hungry in America. But millions of kids in the United States live with hunger. No Kid Hungry is working to end childhood hunger by helping launch and improve programs that give all kids the healthy food they need to thrive. This is a problem we know how to solve. No Kid Hungry is a campaign of Share Our Strength, an organization committed to ending hunger and poverty.