Get The Facts
Download the brochure (PDF, 3MB) which explains how together we will end childhood hunger.
Or for more details, download the complete Plan To End Childhood Hunger in the Nation's Capital (PDF, 6.56MB).
The Ten-Part Plan
- Providing all District children a healthy breakfast
- Encouraging healthy food choices
- Helping families meet needs at home with food stamps
- Improving working families' economic security
- Increasing families' access to fresh produce
- Helping after-school programs provide healthy meals and snacks
- Expanding reach of summer meals programs
- Ensuring access to balanced, nutritious diets for all pregnant women and preschool children
- Ensuring access to nutritious food in shelters and food pantries
- Providing comprehensive public education about available assistance
Ten-Year Goal
Low-income families in the District of Columbis will achieve greater economic security.
The Plan to End Childhood Hunger
Improve working families’ economic security
Economic self-sufficiency is the most effective antidote to childhood hunger. While most of the steps for helping families achieve that goal are beyond the scope of this plan, we will support advocates who are working to ensure the availability of jobs, improve wages, increase health care coverage for families, make child care more affordable, and strengthen Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). We will also work to produce immediate results by helping more low-income families take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which provides tax refunds to low-income workers — even if they don't earn enough to have to pay federal income taxes.
Currently, about 52,000 District residents claim the federal EITC — infusing more than $80 million in federal money into the local economy — and more than 44,000 taxpayers claim D.C.'s local version of the credit. But approximately 10,000 eligible District residents are not obtaining refunds for which they qualify because they are not aware that they're eligible, or don't know how to claim the benefit. We'll work to inform all District residents about how to obtain this tax benefit, and we'll make sure that the effort is sustained and broad enough to reach everyone who may qualify.
Two-Year Action Plan
- Foster public/private outreach program to promote greater public awareness of EITC benefits.
- Support expansion of community-based tax preparation clinics to assist residents in claiming the tax credit.
Action Steps
- Provide grants to community organizations to provide nutrition education to people with limited income.
- Provide more community nutrition education programs.
- Add nutrition education to the public school curriculum.
- Conduct awareness campaign about the importance of nutrition. of importance of nutritious foods.
Measures of Success
- Number/type of community-based organizations that receive grants to implement nutrition education classes and programs.
- Increase in the number of nutrition education classes conducted by community-based organizations.
- Participation rates/demographics of people participating in nutrition education classes.
- Existence of a standardized k-8 nutrition education curriculum.
- % change in awareness among DC residents