News & Events

Utahns Against Hunger is excited to welcome Mamta and Alyssa to our staff.   Through a partnership with the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, UAH is able to bring on two AmeriCorps VISTAs for a year of service.

Mamta is focusing on building the capacity of UAH’s child nutrition work and working on coordinating UAH’s efforts around food stamp at farmers markets. Alyssa is working to extend UAH’s impact around federal nutrition programs through both our mobile Food Stamps screening & enrollment initiative and our Summer Food outreach.

On last Thursday’s radio show “Q,” writer, academic and activist Raj Patel talked about his recent article for The Atlantic titled “Abolish The Food Industry”. In the wake of science that shows how bad sugar can be for humans, Patel thinks we should limit the power of food corporations to sell unhealthy products in the same way we already do with alcohol and tobacco companies.

What do you think? Should unhealthy foods be regulated by government? Or should the choice be left to consumers?

Listen to the show HERE.

(Mayor Becker and the Salt Lake City Food Policy Task Force introduced the next phase of the Community Food Assessment at a press conference on Wednesday.  The comprehensive assessment evaluates the entire life cycle of the City’s local food system from production to plate to food waste)

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker says that many people do not know the origin of the food they buy at the store. The mayor says the average grocery item travels more than 1,500 miles before it is placed on a shelf.  “That’s not the best way for us to make sure we have good healthy food and reduce our impact on the environment,” said Becker.

Part of the program involves polling Utahns using an online survey about what may be stopping them from growing their own food or participating in community gardens.  “We want to ID how much food we process, how we get food to us and how are we accessing food,” Becker says. “It’s one of the more important thing we can do as we look long term towards our future”

The city also introduced a food production mapping tool to help residents estimate how much food can be grown in their backyard.

Click HERE to read the rest of the Fox 13 story.

SALT LAKE CITY – Mayor Ralph Becker and representatives of Salt Lake City’s Food Policy Task Force (including Utahns Against Hunger) officially launched the next phase of the capital’s Community Food Assessment today at the City & County Building. The comprehensive assessment evaluates the entire life cycle of the City’s local food system from production to plate to food waste. The City also unveiled a novel new digital tool for residents interested in growing their own food.

The first phase of the Community Food Assessment, initiated in August 2011, concentrated on compiling historic and current data related to food production, health and nutrition in Salt Lake City. The next phase is focused on surveying community members to learn more about how and where they are getting their food and what guides their decisions. Salt Lake City is also hoping to hear about the challenges residents face in feeding their families and in accessing healthy food options.

Please help us make the Community Food Assessment as comprehensive as possible by taking the survey.

To see the official media advisory & press packet, click HERE.

Click here to TAKE THE COMMUNITY FOOD ASSESSMENT SURVEY & be connected to our food production resources and tools!

Join us on February 21st at the University of Utah’s School of Social Work for a panel discussion about programs in Salt Lake City that engage young people in growing food.

Panelists will include:  Julie Rabb with Wasatch Community Gardens, Angela Romero with the Sorenson Unity Center‘s G-Fresh program, Ashley Edgette with the U’s Social Justice Gardens at Mt. View Elementary School, and Mike Evans with Utahns Against Hunger’s Real Food Rising.

Free soup until it runs out.

Tuesday February 21st    12:00-1:30 PM
University of Utah
School of Social Work – Goodwill Humanitarian Building
Community Meeting Room (155)
Map to Social Social (visitor parking highlighted in blue)

For more information about the Social Soup Lecture Series, click HERE.

photo by Eva Hershaw

UAH wants to extend our heartfelt thanks to Laura and Nathan for their work they did with Utahns Against Hunger over the past year as AmeriCorps VISTAs.  (We were fortunate to have the opportunity to bring on VISTAs because of our national partnership with the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.)  Their accomplishments are too numerous to list them all here, but they include building capacity in the areas of:  Summer Food outreach, Food Stamps at farmers markets, nutrition education, and mobile Food Stamp screening and enrollment.

Thanks for your year of service, Laura and Nathan.

David Welena
(Doby Photo-NPR)

From “Morning Edition” comes a story by David Welna at National Public Radio:

“Ever since Congress passed the Food Stamp Act nearly a half century ago, that federal hunger-relief program has periodically become a political target. Over the past decade, the nation’s food stamp program has more than doubled in size. This year, the program has become a part of the presidential contest.”

Click the link below to listen to the entire story from Morning Edition.
It’s about 5 minutes long.

Gingrich Uses Food Stamps To Criticize Rivals

By Lisa Levenstein and Jennifer Mittelstadt – LA Times Opinion

The nation’s food stamp program is an essential part of the American safety net. Why? Because people can’t be productive — in school, at work or looking for work — if they are hungry and fearful about not having enough food to feed their families.

Photo: Ron Sachs
(Getty Images)

The program serves 46 million people, almost as many people as Medicare. And that’s despite the fact that more than one-third of those eligible for the benefit are not receiving it. If all those who qualified for food stamps enrolled in the program, it would include 20% to 25% of Americans.

Not surprisingly, given the large numbers who participate, food stamp recipients are a diverse bunch, including the elderly, the disabled, one-parent families, two-parent families, low-wage workers, students, soldiers and the unemployed.

But if Republicans have their way, they will turn food stamp recipients into the new “welfare queens.”

Click here to read the rest of the article at latimes.com

By Lisa Baertlein (Reuters)

Stung by election-year criticism of a program used by one in seven Americans, administrators of U.S. food stamp benefits are intensifying efforts to combat fraud and protect the $75.3 billion plan from the budget axe.

Enrollment in the food aid program that helps the poor, elderly and disabled is running at record high levels, with 46.1 million people now participating.

High joblessness, persistent woes in the housing market and a tepid economic recovery have driven more that 14 million people to sign up for the benefits since U.S. President Barack Obama took office three years ago.

That number includes many displaced workers, who are now attempting to eke out a living with low-wage or part-time jobs. In many states, a family of four with net income of just over $23,000 would qualify for food stamps.

The spike in enrollment prompted Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich to dub Obama the “food stamp president” and has fueled calls for cuts to assistance programs that critics say are turning the United States into a welfare state.

In the face of such criticism, officials responsible for food stamps are trumpeting the program’s efficiency and vowing further improvements.

Kevin Concannon, U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said his agency was doubling efforts to prevent fraud, which accounts for just 1 percent of food stamp benefits, but equals about $750 million each year.

“This is $750 million that isn’t being used to provide food to individuals and families and that issue isn’t lost on us,” Concannon said in a recent phone interview.

Click here to read the rest of the article at reuters.com