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State Food Purchase Program Turns 30

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Created in 1983, and written into law ten years later, the State Food Purchase Program helps food banks feed the state’s hungriest families.  However, the 30-year anniversary is one that Hunger-Free Pennsylvania Executive Director Sheila Christopher would prefer not to mark.  “We would rather be standing her marking the end of SFPP, a sign that hunger is no longer a problem in Pennsylvania,” she told a crowd of anti-hunger advocates in the state capitol rotunda.  “Sadly that’s not the case.”

Amid the muted celebration, the group honored the four sitting lawmakers who were among the bill’s original co-sponsors 20-years ago: Sam Smith (R-Jefferson), David Argall (R-Schuylkill), Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster) and Tom Caltagirone (D-Berks). 

These cupcakes have since been delivered to state lawmakers and key members of the administration.

These cupcakes have since been delivered to state lawmakers and key members of the administration.

For the scores of younger lawmakers who don’t have such a long history with the SFPP, Christopher and others delivered each of them a cupcake and an information card.  “We certainly would hope they would recognize the importance of this program.  It’s not going away, unfortunately, so let’s get our people fed,” she tells us. 

SFPP funding has been slowly eroding. While demand for the program has increased over the past five years, support has been cut back from $18.75-million to $17.34-million.  Christopher says they’d need $24-million just to keep up with food inflation, let alone the additional requests for assistance.

“Nearly 1.4-million Pennsylvanians are at risk for hunger in one of the most productive agricultural states in the northeast,” state Agriculture Secretary George Greig explained at the commemoration.  While their struggle for funding continues, the participation of a Corbett cabinet member – in addition to bipartisan, bicameral lawmakers – gave the state’s anti-hunger advocates reason for optimism.

Food Assistance Shifts From Emergency To Chronic According to New Study

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Food pantries are seeing more repeat users, and a new study, “Food Banks: Hunger’s New Staple“, says it reflects a shift from emergency food assistance to chronic.  More Americans are depending on food pantries and other charitable food services to feed themselves and their families according to the study by Feeding America.   

Mara Daly, chief communication and program officer for Feeding America, says the pantries are being used to fill monthly shortfalls in food. She says emergency food is no longer being used to meet temporary food needs.  She says a majority of their clients are visiting regularly to supplement what appear to be monthly shortfalls in food.

Daly says the majority of clients are frequent users. The elderly population tends to need services on a more frequent basis.  She says well over half of the seniors they serve are long term recurrent users, suggesting fixed incomes of seniors in America may be insufficient to provide for basic food needs.

Daly says they are also serving people who are receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps). She says this indicates benefits are not lasting through the entire month. She says with higher food prices, many clients are finding their benefits will not stretch as far as they did a year ago.

In addition to higher food prices, Daly says lingering unemployment is another part of the problem. She says the food network has been over burdened since the recession started a few years ago and they don’t see any real relief in the near future.

Daly says this chronic use comes at the same time that food banks have seen a reduction in commodities being donated through government programs and corporation donors, and an increase in the total number of people seeking assistance of any kind. She says that need is at an all time high in recent history.  People can learn ways to help by visiting feedingamerica.org.