LORAIN, OH – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) visited the Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio today for the 2016 Elected Officials Service Event. Brown highlighted the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), also known as the Senior Box Program, and helped pack meal boxes for seniors.

“As we approach Thanksgiving and the holiday season, we need to remember that for too many Ohioans, the holidays are just another day when they will struggle to feed their families,” said Brown. “I’ve been a longtime advocate for funding the USDA’s Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) that makes the Senior Boxes possible and helps feed more than 20,000 Ohio seniors. No Ohio family should be forced to go hungry—during the holidays, or any time of the year.”

The CSFP, a program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, aims to provide participants with nutritious foods to supplement their diets. Participants must be 60 years old or older and living at or below 130% of the federal poverty level.

Brown has been a strong advocate for continued federal funding of the CSFP program and other programs that increase Ohioans’ access to nutritious meals. In March 2016, Brown wrote a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee asking the committee to fund the CSFP program at the level President Obama requested in the FY 2017 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.

Brown also authored the Hunger-Free Schools Act that expands school lunch programs to ensure Ohio kids can get nutritious meals during summer vacation. The Hunger-Free Schools Act, which helps reduce paperwork and enroll already-eligible students in childhood nutrition programs through direct certification was the centerpiece of the anti-hunger component of a new law enacted in 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

After his call for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to increase its contributions to ensure food pantries can continue to serve their communities, USDA increased the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) by $50 million. TEFAP is used to supply low-income senior citizens and families with nutritious commodity foods, including canned fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, beans, pasta, peanut butter, rice, and soups. In Aug. 2015, Brown and 22 of his Senate colleagues urged USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to distribute existing funding through TEFAP to purchase additional foods for distribution to food banks in Ohio and across America.  

 

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