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In 2021, Maine passed landmark legislation guaranteeing healthy school meals for all students, but the groundwork leading up to this began years before.

Full Plates Full Potential was founded in 2014 out of what originally began as a legislative task force to address Maine’s high rate of student food insecurity.
The task force quickly recognized the need for a nonprofit and non-governmental organization dedicated solely to addressing childhood food insecurity and to leading the work, assembling coalition partners, and investigating best practices and sensible solutions related to the existing, yet underutilized, federal Child Nutrition Programs.

On December 12, 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the first Pandemic EBT plan for school year 2022–2023. Wisconsin’s plan includes benefits for both school-age children and children under 6 in child care. The state estimates that 80,000 school children, which includes 15,000 qualified homeschool1 or virtual students, and 95,000 children under 6 in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in child care are eligible to receive Pandemic EBT benefits. The state estimates that it could distribute approximately $110 million throughout the school year, beginning in January 2023.

During 2022, the country started to “return to normal,” while still grappling with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of households were struggling to make ends meet and to afford the food that they and their families need. Without the federal nutrition programs, hunger prior and during the pandemic would have been far worse. The pandemic offered critical lessons on how to effectively address hunger.
Here are 10 ways that Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) took bold steps toward a nation free from hunger.

Reinstating the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a historic opportunity to address hunger and improve the nutrition, health, and well-being of tens of millions of families across the country. That’s why more than 550 local, state, and national organizations working to end hunger signed on to a letter urging Congress to restore the expanded CTC and EITC in any end-of-year tax package.

This past year, FRAC created a new Unit dedicated to providing leadership and direction for building out our network of national, state, and local nonprofit organizations, public agencies, corporations, schools, health-care providers, and labor organizations. FRAC’s Director of Network Engagement, Betsy Kerrigan, and FRAC’s Network and Events Coordinator Nomi Small, are spearheading this work. Betsy and Nomi will focus on managing FRAC-sponsored events and supporting the expansion of our network.