November 7, 2002

Senator Kent Conrad

United States Senate

Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Conrad:

Congress has a unique opportunity in the coming year, when the child nutrition programs will be reauthorized, to ensure that millions of children in this country, particularly low income children, have improved access to nutritious food in school (through breakfast and lunch programs), during out-of-school time (in afterschool and summer programs), in preschool child care, and at home. Our child nutrition programs are extraordinary examples of successful public programs that, in addition to providing nutritious food, allow communities to improve and expand programs and activities that positively affect a child’s life.

As the child nutrition programs play a larger role in helping children access quality child care, educational and recreational programs, and in improving children’s development, health and achievement as well as nutrition, the demands on the programs have increased. Funding has not kept pace with these additional demands. We therefore urge the Senate Budget Committee to take the first step by committing new federal dollars dedicated to strengthening and expanding our nation’s child nutrition programs.

With a new investment, Congress can accomplish a range of important national goals. Examples include:

# Every child must have an equal opportunity to succeed in school. Numerous studies show hunger's detrimental effect on a child's ability to learn and thrive in school. Studies show that school breakfast has positive effects on hunger, nutrition, classroom behavior, test scores, grades and school attendance. Through the expansion of universal breakfast programs (e.g., reaching all elementary schools that wish to participate), where all children receive a school breakfast at no charge, we can ensure that many more children begin the day with the nutrition they need to succeed.

# Working families need access to nutritious food for their children in safe and nurturing environments in preschool child care, after school and during the summer. Through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), the Summer Food Service Program and the School Lunch Program, sponsors offer snacks and meals combined with enriching recreational and educational out-of-school time activities. Program sponsors tell us that it is the food that brings many children to the programs in the first place. CACFP also provides essential nutrition and quality monitoring for preschoolers in child care. However, current area eligibility guidelines for all these programs leave many low-income working families without access. Eligibility guidelines need to be broadened in order to serve more children in need. In addition, suppers should be made available in afterschool programs in low-income areas to provide food and supervision in the post-welfare reform world in which parents work and commute long hours.

# Healthy eating habits help to prevent childhood obesity and other nutrition-related diseases. The child nutrition programs present opportunities for positive role modeling of healthy and nutritious meals, from birth through the teen years, through the School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, WIC Program, CACFP, and after school snacks and suppers. Promoting optimal child health through these programs can be achieved in a number of ways, including enhancing reimbursements to support schools and sponsors in their efforts to improve meals and snacks, increasing children’s access to fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low fat dairy products, and increasing funding for nutrition education that teaches children how to make healthy lifelong choices for themselves.

# The child nutrition programs provide America’s children with nutritious meals and should be fully utilized. Current unnecessary paperwork and cost-accounting requirements often keep potential sponsors and schools from participating fully in the programs. The programs should be made administratively easier for sponsors to operate and for parents to access. For example, the provisions in the Summer Food Service Program that Senator Lugar sponsored in 2000 for 13 states have shown that more sponsors participate when paperwork burdens are lifted, resulting in an increase in program sites and numbers of low-income children served. These and similar administrative improvements should apply nationwide to all sponsors and be authorized permanently.

In 1946, Congress passed the National School Lunch Act as a "measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities." Since then Congress has wisely improved the child nutrition programs to better serve children and families and adjust to changes in our families, workplaces, schools and communities. The goals of the 2003 reauthorization of the child nutrition programs should equally be to strengthen the nation and our children’s health and well-being. We urge you to reserve at least $1.5 billion annually for important improvements in the child nutrition programs.

Sincerely,

American Association of School Administrators

American School Food Service Association

Bread for the World

Central Conference of American Rabbis

Child Welfare League of America

Children's Foundation

Church Women United

Coalition on Human Needs

Congressional Hunger Center

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Food Research and Action Center

MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger

Mennonite Central Committee U.S.

National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd

National Association of Child Advocates

National Council of Jewish Women

National Education Association

National PTA

National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness

NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office

Public Justice Center

RESULTS, Inc.

Union of American Hebrew Congregations

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW)

Volunteers of America