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Ask Your Members of Congress to Co-Sponsor the Hunger Free Schools Act

The “Hunger Free Schools Act of 2009,” (S. 1343/H.R. 4148) sponsored by Senators Sherrod Brown (D- OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Representatives David Loebsack (D-IA) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) would help more low-income children participate in school meals by improving and expanding direct certification for school meal eligibility, and by allowing more schools in high-poverty areas to provide universal (free to all) meal programs.

The Hunger Free Schools Act would improve and expand access to school meals and snacks for low-income children, promote direct certification, reduce paperwork and administrative costs, and utilize technology. Specifically the legislation would:

Expand access to child nutrition programs by requiring school districts to utilize data from Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to directly certify more students that are eligible for free school meals;
Allow schools or districts serving a high proportion of low-income children to serve free meals to all students and be reimbursed based on socioeconomic data rather than individual applications; and
Improve state performance in directly certifying eligible children by setting a performance standard (95 percent of eligible students should be directly certified for school lunch programs) and providing incentives to high performance States.

Action Needed: Please use the form below to send your Members of Congress an e-mail, asking them to co-sponsor the Hunger Free Schools Act of 2009, S. 1343/H.R. 4148.

February 09, 2010

Subject:

Dear Member of Congress:

I am writing to request that you co-sponsor the “Hunger Free Schools Act of 2009,” (S. 1343/H.R. 4148) introduced by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D–PA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Representatives David Loebsack (D-IA) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO).  This bill is important because it will make it possible for more low-income children to participate in school meals by improving and expanding direct certification for school meal eligibility, and by allowing more schools in high-poverty areas to provide universal (free to all) meal programs.

Specifically the legislation would: 
•	Expand access to child nutrition programs by requiring school districts to utilize data from Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to directly certify more students that are eligible for free school meals; 
•	Allow schools or districts serving a high proportion of low-income children to serve free meals to all students and be reimbursed based on socioeconomic data rather than individual applications; and
•	Improve state performance in directly certifying eligible children by setting a performance standard (95 percent of eligible students should be directly certified for school lunch programs) and providing incentives to high performance States.

The bill will improve the “direct certification” process (which automatically enrolls for free school meals children who receive SNAP/Food Stamps, TANF and FDPIR) by requiring states to use data matching processes and by adding Medicaid to the qualified matching programs. The measure provides performance awards to states that effectively directly certify a high proportion of eligible children or that show significant improvement in their system. It also requires states that directly certify less than 95 percent of children eligible for direct certification to submit an improvement plan. 

Please co-sponsor the Hunger Free Schools Act, S. 1343/H.R. 4148, so that more low-income children will be able to access healthy school meals.

Sincerely,

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