Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Maryland
November 24, 2008
Thank you all for joining us today. Thanks especially to Billy Shore and everyone with Share Our Strength, and to Dr. Grasmick, Principal Prentiss Moore and the students, faculty and staff of Highlandtown Elementary/Middle School, our kind hosts this afternoon.
We are here today because we believe that it’s within both our capacity and our compassion as Marylanders to eliminate childhood hunger within five years, establishing ourselves as the first State in America to do so, and continuing our great Revolutionary tradition of leading the way through times of great adversity.
It’s been our history as well to prove that tough times don’t last, tough people do – and once again we are facing some very difficult economic times, made even more challenging for many Maryland families as the autumn weather gives way to the cold of winter.
But we are going to get through this together, and now that the election season is over and the holiday season is beginning, it is a time for renewing our focus on the things that unite us: our belief in the dignity of every individual; our belief that there is no such thing as a spare Marylander or spare American,…
And our belief in certain basic aspirations shared by all humanity: that all our children, regardless of their parents’ party affiliation deserve a healthy start, a decent home, a place to play where they don’t have to dodge hypodermic needles or bullets, and the ability grow up free from the affliction of hunger.
But tragically, there are more than 184,000 children in our State who live with this affliction of hunger.
Announcement
We are announcing today that, together with Share our Strength, we have launched the Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Maryland and tasked it with developing a five-year plan to end childhood hunger in our State.
During the initial stages of our efforts, we are focusing on increasing enrollments in four federally funded programs in FY’09.
- The School Food and Nutrition Program, which we are seeking to offer to an additional 65,000 students this fiscal year.
- The Summer Food Service Program, for which we would like to increase enrollment by 49,000 this fiscal year.
- The Child and Adult Care Food Program, where we are trying to increase the number of centers from 564 statewide to 677.
- The Food Supplement Program, or what used to be known as the Food Stamp Program, for which we are trying to increase household enrollment by at least 15%.
Taken together, these increases would yield an additional $21 million in federal funding for Maryland to help our children during these difficult economic times.
The Partnership, which will be led by Share our Strength and our Office for Children, will include representatives from across our State government, along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Maryland Food Bank, Advocates for Children and Youth, Maryland Hunger Solutions, and the Food Research and Action Center.
Conclusion
The progress we are seeking on childhood hunger is part of our broader efforts to protect our children and give them a brighter future. Working together, for instance we’re expanding health care coverage to tens of thousands of previously uninsured children and improving dental coverage so that we’ll never lose another Deamonte Driver, the little boy who passed away when a toothache spread to his brain,…
Together we’re investing a record $5.3 billion in school construction and we’re investing $741 million to replace temporary learning shacks with modern classrooms.
And together, we’re taking back our neighborhoods and making them safer for our children – with homicides in Baltimore down 19% this year.
We still have a ways to go, but working together we’re making progress. And God wants every partial victory.
Thank you. Up next I’d like to call Bill Shore to the microphone.
