The Food Bank of Iowa has received a $2 million gift from a prominent Des Moines family, to better serve the 300,000 Iowans who are food insecure. Food insecurity has been a longstanding problem in Iowa, even though the state s farmers grow 18% of the nation s corn. A third of those hungry people are children. .
It has been almost a year since New Hampshire families received the last monthly Child Tax Credit payment of a few hundred dollars, and their advocates say the result of stopping the payments has been alarming. The families include some 217,000 children, and the number who report they "sometimes or often" did not have enough to eat in the previous week has increased by 50% in the past year. Michael Reinke, executive director of the Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter, said the change has been dramatic. .
Families are being forced to stretch their SNAP dollars due to inflation, and advocates say they want Congress to tackle the issue in the 2023 farm bill. Lawmakers are expected to begin working soon on the legislation, which focuses primarily on food-and-farming. It is set to expire at the end of this year, and stands to be reauthorized every 5 years. .
While the most extreme impacts of the pandemic have eased, the demand at Indiana food banks has not. Indiana pork producers and Feeding Indiana s Hungry have an ongoing Million Meals program to attempt to provide one million meals in a year to Hoosiers in need. The effort seeks to include protein with those meals in the form of fresh and frozen ground pork provided on an ongoing basis. .