FRAC Chat

Thousands of school nutrition staff from across the country arrived in Las Vegas the second week of July for the School Nutrition Association’s Annual National Conference. We were thrilled to have a FRAC booth there that allowed us to connect with many of the attendees who poured into the exhibit hall for endless food samples, equipment demos, plenty of “swag,” and good information on operating the school nutrition programs. The attendees also spent a lot of time in education sessions. Two of them were led by FRAC staff.

“Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?”

FRAC’s recent report on food hardship found that households with children answered “yes” to that question at a much higher rate than households without children, 18.4 percent compared to 14.1 percent. Given our nation’s high child poverty rates, this is not a surprise. The data alone, however, only begin to capture how much harm America is causing its children because of the poverty and hunger rates they suffer.

It’s going to get a whole lot easier to feed New Jersey kids, thanks to a package of bills passed this spring by our state legislature. The new school breakfast laws will affect an estimated 500 schools educating nearly 308,000 students. Together, the bills have the potential to feed tens of thousands more children through the federal school breakfast and summer meals programs, while bringing millions more in federal reimbursements back to New Jersey.

FRAC’s longstanding partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), brought us — along with 3,000 principals from across the country — to the 2018 National Principals Conference to collaborate and share school breakfast strategies that can help improve student success. The conference was held in Chicago from July 11–13.

As the 2018 hurricane season is upon us, it is a good time to take stock of lessons learned from last year’s hurricanes and wildfires that triggered disaster nutrition assistance in many parts of the U.S. Now is the time to make sure states and their partners have the structures and plans in place to get swift and adequate food assistance, including Disaster SNAP (D-SNAP) to people in need should disasters hit in 2018.