WASHINGTON, DC – Last week, 112 mayors from across the country signed a bipartisan letter urging Congress to protect, strengthen and fully fund federal nutrition programs during ongoing budget negotiations. The mayors are members of the Mayors Alliance to End Childhood Hunger, a nonpartisan coalition representing more than 400 mayors across all 50 states and Washington, DC, working in partnership with Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign. The letter comes as Congress is considering massive cuts to nutrition programs as part of its budget process.
“We express our concern for the growing number of children in our country facing food insecurity and hunger if these cuts are enacted. There are increasing pressures on the cost and availability of food, including viral illnesses in animals raised for consumption, a diminished number of agricultural workers, and continuing global conflict. Our cities are on the frontline of responding to challenges in our communities, and as mayors, we need every option available to fight childhood hunger,” the letter states.
The letter specifically references SNAP, WIC, and school meals as priorities for congressional members to consider as they continue negotiations, making note of the vast number of people the programs impact:
- SNAP is one of our nation’s most powerful tools to end hunger. It helps 41+ million Americans, including 1 in 5 children.
- About 6.6 million people participate in WIC monthly, including 4 of 10 infants in the United States.
- About 29.6 million students eat lunch at school, and 72 percent of those lunches are for students whose families qualify for free and/or reduced-price meals.
A message encouraging restoration of the enhanced Child Tax Credit closes out the letter.
“Kids don’t know partisan lines,” said Mayor Paige Cognetti of Scranton, PA, who serves as Vice-Chair of the Mayors Alliance. “The solutions lie not just with mayors locally and with school districts and nonprofits, but they certainly lie in state legislatures and in our federal Congress. It’s incumbent upon the Mayors Alliance to remind our state legislatures, remind our congressional members that childhood hunger exists and that the solutions do matter at the state and federal levels.”
The signatories of the letter to Congress span the political spectrum–Republican, Democratic, Nonpartisan, and Independent–yet all come together to agree that no child in America should go hungry.
