Today Hunger Council of Chittenden County Convenes

The Hunger Council of Chittenden County is convening today at 1:30PM-3:30PM at CCRPC in Winooski to receive an update on a range of hunger and nutrition related policy including: the Farm Bill and what recent cuts mean to Vermonters, and the bill H.620 currently moving through the Vermont legislature—calling to hold Vermonters harmless when the state has made an error calculating their 3SquaresVT benefits. Rep. Ann Pugh will give a brief overview of what is happening in the state legislature.

Also on the agenda is to explore opportunities and obstacles to out-of-school time feeding. Many kids rely on meals provided in school and fall behind their peers nutritionally and developmentally when those meals aren’t available during the summer. Providing balanced meals in afterschool programs is also an opportunity to get kids the nutrition they need to grow and learn. Our expert, Derrick Lambert, Child Nutrition Advocate at Hunger Free Vermont, will lead the discussion and will be joined by Rebecca Goldberg, in charge of Youth Services at the Library in Burlington.

Before closing the meeting and defining next steps for the group, they will also participate in providing feedback to the National Leadership Academy for the Public's Health, Chittenden Fellowship Team's project on food security. The project team will present their work to date and ask for Council feedback and input on their messaging campaign to raise awareness about food insecurity issues.

This is the first meeting of 2014 for the Hunger Council of Chittenden County. The other five Councils will be meeting in the coming weeks as well—some for the second time this year. Launched in 2006, the Community Hunger Project allows Hunger Free Vermont to address hunger at the local level by creating county-centric Hunger Councils that mobilize community leaders to end hunger in their communities. This sustainable model was initially piloted in Washington and Chittenden Counties and replicated in the Lamoille Valley in 2010, in Windham County in 2011, and Addison County in 2013.