CHILD NUTRITION
1 in 6 US children are food insecure.
There are proven solutions to this crisis.
School lunches, children’s food benefits, and anti-poverty cash assistance are demonstrated, powerful tools for empowering child food security.
We must fight with tool we have to end child hunger in the US.
In 2019, 34 million Americans were living in poverty. 10.5 million were children.
Black and Hispanic households are more than two times more likely than white children to live in food insecure households.
Over 30 million children receive free or reduced-price school meals through the National School Lunch Program.
1 in 4 US children participate in SNAP.
WIC serves 53 percent of all infants born in the United States.
SNAP, WIC, and school meals fight child hunger. But social stigma, small benefit amounts, the inaccessibility of applications, fear of public charge, and school closures create barriers for families.
“Ever since the coronavirus has been going on, yes, I’ve had a hard time putting food on the table. I’m trying to decide what bills to pay first and what medications I should get. Since school has been closed, my kids don’t eat every day.”
— JAMES, FATHER, GEORGIA (No Kid Hungry)
“My husband was very ashamed of us being a WIC family, so we couldn’t grocery shop at the store where he worked and I couldn’t shop at any of the stores where people he knew worked. To us, going on WIC was an admission of failure. And it speaks to a part of American society that we don’t really address enough when we talk about issues of hunger, child hunger and the inability to get food—this deeply-rooted belief that morality and financial success are intertwined. That if one is getting formula for their baby via WIC, they must have had a fundamental failing.”— MICHELLE, MOTHER, WASHINGTON (No Kid Hungry)
“I’d have fifty bucks to spend on groceries for a family, so I wouldn’t buy healthy greens and fresh fruit. I might buy one tomato. But mainly I would get rice and pasta. Once we started getting SNAP, I started buying a lot more fruit and vegetables.”
— REBECCA, MOTHER, OREGON (No Kid Hungry)
We are rallying to support the organizations, schools, and parents fighting to end child hunger in their households, in their communities, and nationwide.
-
![]()
Healthy School Meals for All
Our team joined the California School Meals for All Coalition, and helped successfully advocate for CA’s new universal healthy school meals policy - a nation-leading program and revolutionary food equity advancement.
-
![]()
Pandemic EBT
We helped school districts and local organizations in the California Bay Area spread the word about Pandemic EBT to parents, and provided data and research to advocates and implementers to improve the progam’s reach and impact.
-
![]()
BayAreaCommunity.org
We mapped every school meals site serving Bay Area families for 18 months - from the beginning to the end of Grab and Go school meals sites. The first version of our map got half a million views. Then, we built a mobile-friendly, multilingual website to share the data, and also shared it with No Kid Hungry to populate the National Free Meal Finder Map and Texting Hotline.
-
![]()
Meals4Families
We are partnering with Meals4Families, a school meals map website for school districts and parents, to help M4F create state-specific guides listing federal benefits and additional food resources.
