Empty Plates in the Great Land
20 August 2007Empty Plates in the Great Land is an important recent report authored by the Food Bank of Alaska. The Executive Summary follows. The public policy implications are self-evident.
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Hunger is a serious and growing problem in Alaska. In 2005, 12.2 percent of Alaskan households were hungry or on the edge of hunger, up from 8.7 percent in 1998. More than 83,000 Alaskans turned to the emergency food providers in Food bank of Alaska’s network for assistance in 2005. That same year, federally-funded nutrition programs—including the Food Stamp Program, school meal programs, out-of-school-time programs, and commodity programs—brought millions of dollars in food assistance to Alaska. However, all of these programs are underutilized in this state. While thousands of Alaskan children, families, and elders go hungry, Alaska is leaving millions more dollars in federal nutrition resources unclaimed.
The Food Stamp Program, the largest federal food resource, reaches only 59 percent of Alaskans who are eligible. Most eligible but non-participating people are unaware of their eligibility or deterred by the complex application process. Food Bank of Alaska estimates that $29.5 million in additional food stamp benefits could be claimed by helping these Alaskans in need to access the program. These forgone dollars represent not only a lost nutritional benefit to Alaskan families; they also represent lost revenues for local grocers and retailers and lost federal money for Alaskan communities. Food stamp participation is especially low in Alaska’s largest cities, Anchorage and Fairbanks.
School nutrition programs provide free and low-cost meals to children across the state. While most schools in Alaska offer lunch, only two-thirds of Alaska schools have a breakfast program. Alaska ranks 48th among the states in breakfast participation by income-eligible students and could pick up an additional $1.9 million from the federal government by getting up to par with the high-participation states. During the 2005-06 school year, 146 schools with 10,154 low-income students did not offer breakfast. There is the greatest room for expansion in rural Alaska, Anchorage, and the Kenai Peninsula.
Alaska’s uptake of the Summer Food Service Program lags even further behind. Only 6 percent of low-income children accessed summer meals during the summer of 2005, putting Alaska in 50th place among the states for participation. Many after-school programs, shelters, and child and adult care centers could be receiving reimbursements for meals served to low-income clients under the Child and Adult Care Food Program but have not connected with this resource. State officials believe that the Alaska Native and other ethnic minority populations are currently underserved by the WIC program, which provides a targeted set of foods and other services to pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children.
With a comparatively modest investment at the state level, Alaska has the potential to leverage millions of additional nutrition dollars from the federal government. By reducing hunger and food insecurity among Alaskans, such an investment will pay dividends in healthier citizens, higher student achievement, and a more productive workforce. Making full use of these programs will require a state commitment to fight hunger, by supporting the work of the Department of Health and Social Services and the Department of Education and Early Development. The state, however, cannot do this alone—local governments, nonprofits, schools, faith communities, tribes, and the business community are all critical
partners.
This report suggests a number of specific ways in which these stakeholders can work together. Food stamp outreach to eligible but non-participating Alaskans is a top priority, especially in urban Alaska. Emergency food providers and grocers have key roles to play in outreach, and the state can encourage these efforts through training and by drawing down federal outreach monies. School districts, nonprofits, the state government, and businesses can work together to support all of Alaska’s schools in serving breakfast. The out-of-school-time programs need more tribes, faith communities, and nonprofits
to host meal sites. Finally, there is much collaborative work to be done to streamline program administration, simplify application processes, and build connections between the programs so that Alaskans in need are able to obtain assistance in the most efficient and dignified manner possible.
This report also highlights three case studies in effective implementation of the federal food programs in Alaska. These “success stories†include a food stamp outreach project in Anchorage, a dynamic summer food site in Yakutat, and a model school breakfast program in the Bering Strait School District.
The complete Empty Plates Report is available for download as a PDF file.