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Targeting Human NeedsHunger
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Compassion Spotlight
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The Need
The Response
Domestic Food and Nutrition Assistance
International Food Aid
Both large and small FBCOs play a critical role in the Nation’s first line of defense against hunger as well as serving individuals abroad.
Domestic Food and Nutrition Assistance
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeks to ensure that no one in America go hungry. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service works to increase food security and reduce hunger by providing children and low-income people access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education. The USDA’s 15 nutrition assistance programs reach one in five Americans over the course of a year. Since 2001, funding for domestic nutrition assistance has increased more than 75%, to $59 billion.
The Food Stamp Program is the cornerstone of the Federal food assistance programs, with over 28 million people receiving benefits every month. It provides crucial support to needy households and to those making the transition from welfare to work, and helps low-income people and families buy the food they need for good health. Partnerships with FBCOs are an important part of ensuring that all eligible people know about nutrition assistance programs.
Through Special Nutrition Programs, FBCOs participate in and promote the expansion of a variety of Federal nutrition programs via day care centers, food banks, soup kitchens, schools, afterschool programs, shelters, summer feeding sites, and health clinics.
The Summer Food Service Program provides free, nutritious meals and snacks to help children in low-income areas get the nutrition they need during the summer months when they are out of school. The continued engagement of FBCOs is an important component of closing the gap between children who receive nutrition assistance during the school year and those who receive it during the summer.
- During the summer months of 2006, an average of 1.9 million low-income children received healthy meals each day through the Summer Food Service Program.
- Approximately 34% of the partner organizations serving those meals were FBCOs.
The Child and Adult Care Food Program plays a vital role in improving the quality of care for children and elderly adults by making such care more affordable for many low-income families.
- Through this program, 3 million children and more than 100,000 adults receive nutritious meals and snacks each day.
- In FY 2006, approximately 48% of partner organizations participating in this program were FBCOs.
International Food Aid
The United States is the world’s largest provider of food aid and emergency food assistance, and is committed to the goal of global food security. The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) work together to deliver this aid worldwide, often in partnership with FBCOs.
The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program promotes education, health, and food security for poor children in low-income countries that have low literacy and low primary school completion rates. The program aims to reduce extreme poverty and hunger, and to advance literacy and universal primary education. Food for Education focuses especially on girls because they tend to have much lower school attendance rates than boys in many countries.
The Food for Progress Program is designed to support countries that have made commitments to introduce or expand free enterprise elements into their agricultural economies. Under this program, U.S. agricultural commodities are provided to developing countries and emerging democracies committed to expanding free enterprise in the agricultural sector.
The Food for Peace Program, administered by USAID, makes commodity donations to Cooperating Sponsors, which include FBCOs, to address the needs of food security in both 5-year development projects and emergency food assistance programs. This aid is essential in emergency situations, including the ongoing crisis in Sudan.