June 7th, 2006 - Mr. President, for the past three years I have come to the Senate floor on National Hunger Awareness Day to help raise concerns about the far too prevalent problem of hunger, both here in the United States and around the world. In fact, as a freshman senator, I delivered my maiden speech on this topic and have since made it one of my top priorities in the U.S. Senate. Two years ago on Hunger Awareness Day, Senators Smith, Durbin, Lincoln, and I launched the Senate Hunger Caucus, with the express purpose of providing a forum for senators and staff to focus on national and international hunger and food insecurity issues. Today we have 37 members dedicated to this cause. I have stated repeatedly that the battle against hunger can’t be won in a matter of months or even a few years, but it is a victory that we can certainly claim if we continue to make the issue a top priority.
It is truly astounding that 34 million of our fellow citizens go hungry or are living on the edge of hunger each and every day. In my home state of North Carolina, nearly one million of our 8.6 million residents are dealing with hunger. Our state has faced significant economic hardship over the last few years, as once-thriving towns have been hit hard by the closing of textile mills and furniture factories. I know this story is not unlike so many others across the nation. While many who have lost manufacturing jobs have been fortunate to find new employment in the changing climate of today’s workforce, unfortunately having a steady income these days doesn’t always guarantee a family three square meals a day.
Our nation is blessed to have many faith-based and other non-profit service organizations that seek to address this need. Feeding the hungry is their mission field - - Groups such as the Society of St. Andrew, the only comprehensive program in North Carolina that gleans available produce from farms, and then packages, processes and transports excess food to feed the hungry. In 2005, the Society gleaned nearly 7.2 million pounds of food – or 21.5 million servings – just in North Carolina. Amazingly, it only costs about 2 cents a serving to glean and deliver this food to those in need. And all of this work is done by the hands of 13,000 volunteers and a tiny staff.
The Society of St. Andrew has operations in 21 other states, and just last year, the organization saved 29.5 million pounds of fresh, nutritious produce and delivered 88.6 million servings to hungry families in the 48 contiguous states.
We should be utilizing the practice of gleaning much more extensively today – considering that 96 billion pounds of good food – including that at the farm and retail level – is left over or thrown away in this country each year.
Like any humanitarian endeavor, the gleaning system works because of cooperative efforts. Private organizations and individuals are doing a great job – but they are doing so with limited resources. It is up to us to make some changes on the public side and assist in leveraging scarce dollars to help feed the hungry.
One of the single biggest concerns for gleaners is transportation – how to actually get the food to those who need it. I am proud to say that with the help of organizations like the American Trucking Association, America’s Second Harvest, and the Society of St. Andrew, we are taking steps to ease that concern. Last year, I reintroduced legislation, S 283, which would change the tax code to give transportation companies incentives for volunteering trucks to transfer gleaned food.
I am also proud to be an original co-sponsor of S 1885, the so-called FEED Act, with my colleagues Senators Lautenberg and Lincoln. The basic idea behind this legislation is simple: Combine food rescue with job training programs, thus teaching unemployed and homeless adults the skills needed to work in the food service industry.
It is astonishing that each year, approximately 20 percent of the food produced in this country never even reaches a consumer’s table. With support from the FEED Act, community kitchens across our nation have the potential to make good use of this food and to serve more than 2 million meals to those in need each year. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Community Culinary School is already recruiting students from social service agencies, homeless shelters, halfway houses and work release programs who rescue food from restaurants, grocers and wholesalers and then prepare nutritious meals, while receiving training for jobs in the food service industry.
Mr. President, hunger also affects far too many children in our nation. In fact, an estimated 13 million children in America are dealing with hunger. This is a travesty that can and must be prevented. As we know, when children are hungry they can not learn, but the obvious way to ensure that these children have a hot meal – and therefore the potential to do well in school – is through the National School Lunch Program. It feeds more than 28 million children in 100,000 schools each day. While the program provides reduced price meals to students whose family income is below 130 percent of the poverty level, state and local school boards have informed me that many families struggle to pay this fee, and for some families, the fee is an insurmountable barrier to participation. That’s why I am a strong supporter of legislation to eliminate the reduced price fee for these families and to harmonize the free income guideline with the WIC income guideline, which is 185 percent of poverty.
I am very proud that a five state pilot program to eliminate the reduced price fee was included in the reauthorization of Child Nutrition and WIC in 2004. And this year, 13 of my colleagues, including the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, have joined me to encourage the Appropriations Committee to include funding for this pilot program. I look forward to working with them on this important issue that truly has the potential to alleviate hunger for many American children and to help ensure their success in school.
In closing, I implore our friends on both sides of the aisle – as well as the good people throughout our great country – to join us in this heartfelt mission – this grassroots network of compassion that transcends political ideology and provides hope and security not only for those in need today – but for future generations as well. Thank you.
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