Arkansas No Kid Hungry One Year Celebration
Posted by Joyce Hardy on Thursday, October 27, 2011
We celebrated the one year Anniversary of the Arkansas No Kid Hungry Campaign with Governor Mike Beebe, Share Our Strength’s Bill Shore, Bill Ludwig, from USDA, Rhonda Sanders of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and hundreds of No Kid Hungry stakeholders that have contributed to our success.
After a press conference at the state Capitol building, Governor and First Lady Beebe welcomed stakeholders involved in the Arkansas No Kid Hungry campaign to a luncheon at the Governor’s Mansion. Attendees included representatives from state agencies, summer meals program volunteers, Cooking Matters courses participants and volunteers, SNAP advocates, chefs, representatives from schools participating in our Breakfast in the Classroom pilot project, and people who wanted to find out more about the No Kid Hungry Campaign in Arkansas. Representatives from Walmart, Tyson’s, and the Midwest Dairy Council talk about our first year goals. Three inspiring videos highlighted our major goal areas—summer meals, SNAP Outreach, and Breakfast in the Classroom— and demonstrated the impact we are having.
Participating state agencies revealed our activities and success during the first year. According to the state Department of Human Services, our work was instrumental in increasing SNAP participation by 13 percent. Through our outreach and public information campaign this past summer, we were able to increase summer meals served in Arkansas by 16 percent – serving more than 236,000 additional meals compared to last year. And while we’re just beginning our work in increasing participation in School Breakfast and Afterschool Meals, we’re already seeing a positive impact there as well. Rosemary Rodibaugh from the Cooperative Extension also talked about our Cooking Matters pilot program and highlighted the program in a video.
Our success in Arkansas has been monumental and we are proud to have recently received the State Partner Leadership Award, which we brought home from the Share Our Strength Conference of Leaders Awards Ceremony. But we know there is more work to do. Looking forwards, our No Kid Hungry goals for the next three years include— increasing participation in summer and afterschool food programs, the state’s participation in SNAP, the participation in the School Breakfast Program, and families’ abilities to maximize their food resources through Cooking Matters and Shopping Matters.
We are excited to build on our successes from year one and continue to ensure that there’s No Kid Hungry in Arkansas. Everyone left the lunch feeling proud of what we have accomplished together and ready to work together to end childhood hunger in Arkansas by 2015!
October 27, 2011 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: arkansas, no kid hungry
Post a comment
All fields are required (your e-mail address will not be displayed)