Pet food drive on May 13 and 14 at IM

Courtesy: Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston

Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston will be having it first pet food drive for 2010 on Thurday May 13 and Friday May 14.

The drive will be held at IM’s facility from 7am – 6pm on these two days.

Bring unopened packages of dry or wet cat and or dog food.

Yours truly will be volunteering on behalf of the Houston SPCA

For more information about the drive click here to be redirected to IM’s home page and if you scroll down you will see the info

Food assitance program for our furry friends

The aniMeals food assistance program is a program held by the Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston

to supply pet food for pets living with home bound seniors.

Volunteers distribute pet food to home bound seniors who have pets on a monthly basis.

U of H recently held a pet food drive on campus to support IM’s aniMeals program.

To know more about IM’s aniMeals program, click here

Courtesy: Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston

Food insecure families and their pets

“Food insecure families often sacrifice their own food to feed their pets, leaving even less food for the family.”

-Houston Food Bank

On the advocate page of the Houston Food Bank, it mentions that it is working along with members of congress to introduce an amendment drafted by Congressman John Culberson (R-7) regarding food donations from animal food manufacturers.

Below is an excerpt taken from the Houston Food Bank advocate page describing the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act and it holding donations made by animal food manufacturer liable in case the feed happens to be defective.

Source: Houston Food Bank advocate page

Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act
The Houston Food Bank is working with members of Congress to introduce an amendment to Section 1791 of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (Bill Emerson “Good Samaritan Act”).  As currently worded, the Act discourages donations of excess animal feed by manufacturers since the legislation only explicitly removes liability for human food donations.  This means that animal food manufacturers can be held civilly liable for any donation of feed that is defective in any way.  Therefore, those manufacturers do not donate.

It is important to encourage the donation of animal food because food insecure families often sacrifice their own food to feed their pets, leaving even less food for the family.  This simple amendment will allow pet food manufacturers to donate the thousands of pounds of excess animal feed that is currently being destroyed annually.

Congressman John Culberson (R-7) has drafted the amendment.  However, the Houston Food Bank needs your help to get this amendment passed!  Please call, write a letter or schedule a meeting with your member of Congress to let them know that you support Culberson’s amendment to the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of the Child Nutrition Act of 1996 removing liability for animal food donations.

Letter outline for pet food donation amendment

Food programs for the elderly in Houston

According to the USDA, In 2008 1.7 million households with seniors were food insecure in the U.S.

In 2002 the USDA recorded that elderly households are much less likely to receive help through the SNAP program than non-elderly households.  Source: Feeding America

To help seniors obtain meals in the greater Houston area, Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston provide programs such as Meals on Wheels, Dining In, and Food for Seniors.

Meals on Wheels and Food for Seniors are free of charge for elders who meet the elegibility requirement.

These programs are available to homebound seniors 60 years old and older.

For seniors who do not qualify for Meals on Wheels and Food for Seniors, Dining In is another program target for seniors who for a minimum fee can have a meal delivered to their homes.

These programs help over 5,000 seniors in the greater Houston area.

How the Houston Food Bank help kids with nutritional assistance programs

The Houston Food Bank founded in 1982, is a private non- profit organization.  A member of feeding America; the nations food bank network, feeds approximately 137,000 people each week.

The HFB partners with 400 different hunger relief agencies in 18 southeast Texas counties to distribute food.

These agencies are:

• church food pantries
• homeless shelters
• safe havens for the battered and abused
• nutrition sites for children and the elderly

Aside from distributing food to these agencies, the HFB has two additional food assistance program to help children.

These are:

1. The Backpack Buddy Club
2. Kids Cafe

How does the Backpack Buddy Club food program work?

- Children who rely on free or reduced-price lunches during the school year take “child-friendly” food on Friday to have for the weekend. (The schools call the HFB to have the program intergrated)

-These foods are non-perishable-vitamin-fortified that include things such as:

1. canned chicken or tuna
2. yogurt cereal bars
3. 100% fruit juice
4. canned pasta meals

To look at the full list of foods and how the Backpack Buddy Club program works, click here

In fiscal year ’07-’08, the program served 7,273 children and distributed 20,070 food sacks.

sourse: Backpack Buddy Club Fact Sheet

How does Kids Cafe work?

Kids Cafe is an after-school program that provides children with meals and snacks.

In addition to receiving meals, kid also receive food safety lessons through a collaboration of Houston’s area chefs, dietitians and volunteers.

• It was first launched in Houston in 2000
• Each month it provides meals to as many as 1,400 kids
• The program also functions in the summer where the numbers of kids attending the program doubles

Nationally it was launched in 1993 by Feeding America.  Today there are 1,200 Kids Cafes operating in the Unites States.

For more information on how and where Kids Cafe operate, click here

Source: Kids Cafe Fact Sheet

Courtesy: Houston Food Bank

Courtesy: Houston Food Bank

The state’s audit report on fixing the SNAP eligibility system

From an earlier blog referring to the “bad” eligibility system with the SNAP(formally called the food stamp program) program in Texas, we learned that:

• Texas has been ranked last of all 50 states including U.S. territories to process food stamp applications within the 30-day time frame that is required under federal law.
• The eligibility process, experienced staff shortages and problems with the Health and Human Services Commission using outdated computer databases are some reasons attributed to the delay in SNAP benefits reaching needy families in Texas.

On January 12,2010, the Center for Public Policy Priorities made a release saying that in December 2009 Texas Human and Health Services Commissioner, Tom Suehs asked for a review to be made by the Texas State Auditor regarding the problem Texas faces with the SNAP eligibility system.

On March 30, 2010, the State Auditor’s office released a report addresses some of the problems that the HHSC faces with the eligibility systems pertaining to programs like SNAP, Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families known as TANF.

These include:

• communication with applicants and clerical support
• technology
• workforce management
• management information

The report is not just all criticism.

It mentions that the Federal Government has given the HHSC $27 million in supplemental funding for the administration of SNAP, and it encourages the Commission to use these funds to raise salaries and training to employees working in the Commission’s eligibility offices and improving the technology it uses to process the applications.

Below you will find the links to the full reports of :

The State’s Audit report

The CPPP statement report

The CPPP’s policy page on background information about the problems facing Texas’ eligibility system

Child Hunger in Texas

courtesy: Houston Food Bank

Texas is the second highest state with food insecurity (after Mississippi), and ranks number one with having the highest percentage of child hunger in the United States.

• 22.1% of children under the age of 18 suffer from food security

• 23.3% of children under the age of five suffer from food security

This means that more that one in five children live in a household facing food insecurity.

How can food insecurity affect  a child?

Research has proven that a child who suffers a mild undernourishment nutrition during the years of  development can have an impact on their behavior, their school performance and an overall cognitive development.

…So how are these characteristics of mild undernourishment be reflected academically in Texas schools?

Could there be a link between poverty, hunger and low academic performance?

Below is the link to some slides obtained from the Center for Public Policy Priorities showing graphs explaining the links that could probably exists between poverty, hunger and poor academic performances and drop out rates.

These slide also explain the actions that should be taken to reduce food insecurity in Texas, such as enforce federal child nutrition programs like after school meals, summer feeding service programs, SNAP and WIC.

hunger and poverty in texas

Who are the faces of hunger living in Houston?

Here is a video that shows the distinctive people that are in need of food assistance.

It also shows the ways the Houston Food Bank helps provide food through food stamp application processing aid, agencies, after- school food programs.

Dr. Stephen Klineberg talks about hunger and poverty in Houston

Here is a video featuring Professor Stephen L. Klineberg, co- director of the Institute for Urban Research at Rice University.

In 2009, 25% of the survey respondents said that “buying the groceries to feed their
family” was either a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem for them during the
past year, up from 19% in 2002.

This is what was said in The Houston Area Survey report of 2009

research plan

For the Hunger in Houston topic, I will attempt to answer the following questions:

1. How does the U.S. define hunger?
2. Why is there Hunger in Houston?
3. Who are the faces of hunger living in Houston?
4. How is Houston trying to combat food insecurity?