TELL CONGRESS: Protect Kids from Hunger

 

Right now, Congress is considering massive cuts to critical anti-hunger and poverty programs like SNAP, WIC and school and summer meals as part of its budget plans, and we need your help to make sure kids and families don’t lose access to the food and resources they need.

We need every voice in this fight to protect these programs from cuts, and ultimately, protect kids from hunger.

Write to your members of Congress today. Your support can help ensure families are able to put food on the table.

Personalizing your letter below will go further. To make your message more effective, please share why it's important to you to support families and kids in your community.

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Message

TELL CONGRESS: Cutting Programs Hurts Kids

Dear [Decision Maker],



As your constituent, I urge you to fight for kids and families by supporting the following programs:

- SNAP: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is one of our nation's most powerful tools to end hunger. Across the country, 40 million people, including 1 in 5 children, participate in the program. SNAP supplements a family's food budget and is a safe and effective way to feed children. But the food provided by SNAP does much more than fill a child's stomach. It helps kids grow up smarter, stronger and healthier, and that means a smarter, stronger and healthier nation. Cutting SNAP benefits or making it harder to access the program for qualifying families would leave millions vulnerable, particularly children, seniors, and people with disabilities.

- WIC: WIC provides critical nutrition benefits to nearly 7 million women, infants and young children across the country. It helps ensure kids get a healthy start by connecting children, pregnant women and new moms with nutritious foods like formula, milk and fresh produce for their families. This program is vital to ensuring that our nation's youngest people start life with the best possible nutrition, setting the foundation for a healthier, more successful future. Lawmakers across party lines have supported WIC since it was established more than 50 years ago, and this bipartisan commitment to enhancing the well-being of kids and new moms must be continued today.

- School Meals: For many students, a healthy meal is the most important school supply--as important to their learning as a new notebook and pencils--and school meals are a healthy, convenient and affordable way to ensure students have the nutrition they need to thrive in the classroom and beyond. School meals play a critical role in ensuring kids get three healthy meals a day while also helping families stretch their food budget. Not only are they healthy, with research showing that for many kids, the meals they eat at school are the most nutritionally balanced meals they get all day, but they're convenient and create a sense of community. Cutting school meals for kids would be devastating, leaving millions of children without access to nutritious meals that are essential for their health, academic success and overall well-being.

- Summer Meals: Summer should be one of the best times of year for kids, but far too many families struggle to replace the meals served at school, making it one of the hungriest times for many children. But thanks to bipartisan policy changes, new summer grocery benefits and expanded flexibilities for rural communities now work alongside traditional summer meals programs to provide a comprehensive solution to the long-standing challenge of summer hunger. Our nation has finally started turning the page on closing the summer meals gap and we can't afford to lose this momentum. These new programs help states reduce administrative burdens and red tape by identifying families that are already eligible for assistance through programs like SNAP, Medicaid and school meals. Altering verification requirements or cutting these programs would have a ripple effect, making it significantly harder to reach more than 31 million eligible kids.

All of these programs work together to weave a net tight enough that no child slips through. Cuts to one program would create a ripple effect on others, leaving kids without crucial meals or resources.

Policy changes and cutbacks on the scale that's been proposed will have very real and damaging impacts on our families, our communities, our economy, and a broad range of your constituents.

I urge you to prioritize and protect kids and families by opposing efforts to roll back access to any of these important nutrition programs that help parents and caregivers put food on the table for their families.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]