As the one meals financial institution in North Dakota, we stay dedicated to efforts to finish starvation in our state. This consists of Home Invoice 1491, which is at the moment making its means via the state legislature that would offer common college meals for all.
Through the pandemic, we witnessed extra individuals than ever search meals help. This led to the USDA and federal authorities responding by implementing program waivers to make it simpler to entry federal vitamin packages, which included offering free college lunch and breakfast for all children. These waivers grew to become a a lot wanted lifeline for a lot of low-income households. Whereas these waivers ended with the pandemic, the necessity for meals help remained extraordinarily excessive. Simply how excessive? In 2022, we noticed almost 140,000 people flip to the Nice Plains Meals Financial institution for assist, which is the second-highest whole in our close to 40-year historical past.
HB 1491 is bringing necessary conversations to North Dakota.
Individuals are additionally studying…
Are we keen to spend money on primary wants for our youngsters?
Are our kids price investing in?
Whereas some might ask if we are able to afford to feed our youngsters, I ask, “can we afford to not?”
On the Nice Plains Meals Financial institution, we consider whenever you feed a toddler, you feed the long run. By making college meals free for all college students, it ranges the taking part in discipline.
Childhood starvation is a crucial challenge, which is why we spend money on a spread of packages reminiscent of our backpack program or college pantry program to assist get children the vitamin they want. Every day we hear from lecturers, directors and counselors that starvation amongst school-aged kids continues to be a problem. We’ve a duty to maintain our kids fed.
We’ve an opportunity with HB 1491 to take a significant step ahead to finish childhood starvation in our state.
CEO, Nice Plains Meals Financial institution