As President Barack Obama signed a law Monday that will expand the nation’s school lunch program and set new standards for what is in those lunches, Colorado’s governor was unveiling an ambitious plan to end childhood hunger in this state within five years.
The plan — a product of collaboration among educators, nonprofits and anti-hunger advocates — lays out a 10-part strategy that encompasses everything from giving needy children after-school snacks to encouraging working-poor parents to take advantage of tax credits.
The plan was part of the first year’s work of the Colorado Campaign to End Childhood Hunger, launched by Gov. Bill Ritter in November 2009.
Kids are going hungry in Colorado, advocates say. About 42 percent of the people who get food through Food Bank of the Rockies agencies are children, said food bank spokeswoman Gwen Vogelzang. “And 42 percent have a working adult in the household,” she said.
A lot of the money that would pay for children’s meals is already available from the federal government, but Colorado doesn’t take its full share.
“The goals that are in that plan that involve federal nutrition programs, those are largely paid for with federal reimbursements,” said Kathy Underhill, executive director of Hunger Free Colorado. “Colorado for the most part does not utilize those federal dollars well.”
The federal child nutrition act, signed Monday by Obama, will pour more money into improving kids’ nutrition.
The act has attracted critics from across the ideological spectrum, from those such as Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun who say the government has no business setting nutrition standards, to anti-hunger advocates upset that much of the act is paid for with money from the federal food-stamp program.
In Colorado, groups such as Food Bank of the Rockies say it is too soon to know whether or how funds from the act will affect specific programs.
Ritter won’t be in office five weeks from now, let alone the five years it will take to implement the plan. But his spokeswoman, Myung Oak Kim, said the plan will have advocates even after Ritter leaves office.
“The governor is confident those organizations will push hard to keep this as a priority,” she said.
Karen Auge: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com
10-point strategy
The Colorado Campaign’s five-year plan to end childhood hunger would:
• Provide children access to healthy meals during the summer
• Give all children access to a healthy breakfast
• Boost families’ ability to buy food to prepare at home
• Ensure good nutrition for pregnant women
• Support child-care providers’ ability to make healthy food available
• Help after-school programs provide healthy snacks
• Promote nutrition education
• Ensure access to nutritious food in low-income communities
• Ensure availability of food from food banks
• Increase access to the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit
