“This reorganization plan won’t improve service for participants, but rather puts millions of children and their families at greater risk of hunger,” said Borzner.
Contact: Ryan Flaherty at rflaherty@strength.org
WASHINGTON, DC — Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced more details in its plan to reorganize the Department. The plan would relocate Food and Nutrition Service staff to offices across the country and rename the agency the Food and Nutrition Administration. The Department has already lost a significant amount of experienced staff in the last year, and further reorganization will only lead to more staff departures. The following is a statement from Claire Borzner, director for Share Our Strength and its No Kid Hungry campaign:
“The Administration is forcing dedicated public servants to choose between their homes and their careers, a decision that will result in further loss of experienced staff with institutional knowledge and put federal nutrition programs at risk. This reorganization plan won’t improve service for participants, but rather puts millions of children and their families at greater risk of hunger by threatening program operations for SNAP, WIC, Summer EBT, school and summer meals and other nutrition programs.
“This plan comes as nearly $200 billion in cuts to SNAP are going into effect, resulting in more than 3 million people losing access in the first seven months alone. The impact of the cuts to nutrition programs will only continue to accumulate, threatening an unprecedented hunger crisis as more and more families lose access to their grocery benefits.
“USDA should be investing in its specialized workforce to ensure that states and programs can continue to receive the data, technical assistance, and program support needed for nutrition programs to operate effectively and serve the millions of Americans who use nutrition assistance to put food on the table.”
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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.