We thank you for coming today. We are releasing two important documents this afternoon.

First, the 13 national groups that make up the National Anti-Hunger Organizations are unveiling a new blueprint to end hunger in America..

According to the Census Bureau and USDA, there are nearly 35 million Americans – 13 million of them children – who, are hungry or living on the very edge of hunger – food insecure in the research jargon. What food insecure means in people’s real lives is parents skipping meals so children have enough to eat, or families frequently having to rely on emergency food resources like church pantries because they don’t have enough to buy adequate food for themselves – their wages and food stamps run out before the end of the month.

The 13 groups in National Anti-Hunger Organizations, groups that have spent years addressing these issues, have taken a close, systemic look at what is needed to address this terrible problem – truly a national scandal.

The question is not whether we can do this – we know this nation can. It is certainly wealthy enough to solve this problem. The question is how. The NAHO Blueprint lays out a set of eminently do-able, and affordable program investments and improvements in the national safety net to:

• halve hunger and food insecurity in this nation by 2010; and
• end them by 2015.

The key strategies are improving access to public benefits, and improving the adequacy of those benefits, in food stamps, in child nutrition programs (like school breakfast, summer and afterschool food), in WIC, and in emergency feeding programs.

The Blueprint outlines action steps in these areas for federal, state and local governments. Those steps are feasible, and affordable.

And it contains as well practical steps that industry, labor, the faith-based community and other groups and individuals can take.

Ending hunger and food insecurity in this nation will do more than just eliminate a moral blight.

It will improve the health of children and adults.

It will make children more ready to learn, and boost school achievement.

It will reduce obesity.

It will improve productivity.

It will strengthen communities.

It also will bring the nation together around an important, social goal and a long overdue effort to meet that goal. We know from the hundreds of thousands of volunteers in and supporters of our organizations that people in this country care deeply about ending hunger. We know from the last 35 years of Congressional action that there is broad bi-partisan support. This Blueprint lays out a path, and we plan to lead and push policymakers and the nation as a whole to go down this path, starting today, to end hunger in America.

We are releasing a second document today – a non-partisan candidate questionnaire designed to educate the candidates and the public about hunger and poverty in this election year.

FRAC and America’s Second Harvest will send this questionnaire to thousands of food banks, anti-hunger and anti-poverty and community groups around the country and urge them to address these questions to candidates for local, state and federal office.

The questions ask candidates their strategies for reducing hunger and poverty.

The questionnaire does this in a wholly non-partisan way, with instructions on how tax-exempt groups can raise these questions well within the limits of the law.

This dialogue will inform candidates, and the public.

And candidates who win elections can and will be held to what they say in their answers.

Finally, we at FRAC are urging today that Congress finish the child nutrition reauthorization act this month. This would be one important first step toward reaching the Blueprint’s goals.

Bipartisan bills have already passed the full House of Representatives, and the Senate Agriculture Committee. They are good bills that take a number of significant steps forward – in school lunch and breakfast, in child care food programs, in summer food, in afterschool food, and in WIC.

Certainly more steps, and more dramatic steps, will have to follow.

But Congress should finish this first step now.