The pandemic and resulting economic downturn have intensified America’s hunger crisis like never before. Congress has the power to help – but they need to hear from anti-hunger advocates like you that addressing this crisis must be at the top of their list. Join us this week and contact your members of Congress to ensure families facing food insecurity are a priority in the next COVID-19 relief package.
Your Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank is working hard to ensure we meet the needs of the families in our communities. We know that a strong public and private partnership is necessary to fight hunger in our region. Urge your lawmakers to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry in Ohio or anywhere else in our nation.
We urge Congress to:
- Provide an additional $900 million for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) to ensure food banks can provide emergency hunger relief.
- Invest $543 million in the infrastructure of our nation’s charitable food system to help address the severe shortage of vehicles, refrigerators and freezers.
- Increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by 15 percent for the duration of the pandemic and economic recovery.
- Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit to provide support for families in need, cutting child poverty by 50 percent.
- Extend and expand funding and flexibility to ensure child nutrition programs like Pandemic EBT can continue serving children in need.
Contacting your members of Congress is easy with these resources from Feeding America.
- Call your members of Congress using this call line and script.
- Send an email to your members of Congress using this email template.
Use social media to tag your members of Congress and the USDA (@USDA and @USDANutrition) and share about the importance of these anti-hunger programs. Below is sample verbiage.
Many families are struggling to put food on the table today, and many will tomorrow. Our neighbors need food support that will help them eat, now and later. [@LAWMAKER]: You can pass #COVIDRelief that will #BoostSNAPNow for as long as #COVID19 and our economic downturn drive hunger.
Ask Congress to pass a relief bill that provides help to the millions of children facing hunger today. No family should have to choose between paying rent or putting dinner on the table in the middle of a pandemic. Thank you for your continued support of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank in our fight to end hunger in our community.