Day of Action on child nutrition next week

It's hard to remember what one was doing five years ago, but it all came back to me today in a message about the Child Nutrition Act.  Five years ago, I was working on helping to pass this legislation, which resulted in great improvements in our nation's childhood nutrition programs. In 2010, the Child Nutrition Act (commonly known as the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act) passed Congress.  This Act included significant improvements to programs like the National School Lunch Program, the School Breakfast Program, and WIC. It increased children's access to nutritious food, improved the nutritional standards of school food and supported healthier school environments by severely curtailing the sale of junk food in schools.

The Child Nutrition Act is due for reauthorization again.  This legislation regulates all federal school meal and child nutrition programs, and the reauthorization process can alter these programs drastically. Changes to regulations that safeguard children's access to nutritious food could eliminate much of the progress that's been made in the past five years.

Advocacy groups around the country are gearing up campaigns to ensure that the CNR will continue to protect American children from hunger and malnutrition. Here's one way you can be involved...

Child Nutrition Reauthorization Day of Action

Join FRAC and other national anti-hunger organizations on Tuesday, June 23rd for a Day of Action in support of a strong child nutrition bill that invests and improves the programs. As momentum is building in the House and the Senate, we need to join together in one unified effort and urge Members of Congress to support two bicameral bills — the Summer Meals Act of 2015 and the Stop Child Summer Hunger Act of 2015 — that have great potential to dramatically reduce hunger during the summer months. We need your help before, during, and after the Day of Action in order to make sure our efforts propel the Congress to pass a robust child nutrition bill.

Lead Up to Day of Action
Leading up to June 23rd, spark conversations across Twitter and Facebook with messages and stories about the critical need to invest in child nutrition programs. Visit FRAC’s Legislative Action Center to 1) send emails to your Members of Congress to sponsor the bills and 2) have your organization sign our petitions endorsing the bills and helping us reach 1500 endorsing organizations by July 15th. We also urge you to share our petitions on social media with your networks and encourage others to do the same. We have developed sample messages for you to share and tailor to your networks.

Day of Action, June 23rd
On the Day of Action, we encourage you to call/email your Members of Congress asking them to cosponsor the Summer Meals Act and the Stop Child Summer Hunger Act. We have sample messages you can share with Hill staff. Keep sharing your efforts on social media, and be sure to tag FRAC whenever possible to keep us up to date.

After the Day of Action
Continue the momentum following the Day of Action excitement by starting to plan and set up site visits and in-district lobby meetings while your Members of Congress are home during 4th of July and August recess. We have several tools and resources to help you plan, organize, execute, and follow up on successful visits and meetings. These in-person interactions with Members of Congress are critical to highlighting the local impact of the child nutrition programs.