RELEASE: No Kid Hungry Invests $3 Million in Innovative SNAP Efforts in Four States

Contact: Meredith Jorss, mjorss@strength.org

Contact: Jessica Garon, jgaron@aphsa.org

WASHINGTON, DC — Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign will invest $3 million in four states to advance SNAP agency innovation and community coordination to promote equity and combat hunger. Each project will be carried out over a 24-month grant period in partnership with the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA).

This investment builds on the success of a 2021 partnership with APHSA’s first Coordinating SNAP and Nutrition Supports (CSNS) cohort, which sought to align the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, with other federal, state and local nutrition supports to combat childhood hunger. 

Share Our Strength and APHSA will draw on lessons learned, experiences and relationships built during the first cohort to assist new sites throughout the planning, implementation and evaluation of projects in this second round of funding.

“SNAP remains a highly effective tool to feed kids and as we look for ways to strengthen and improve it, finding opportunities to align the program with other nutrition supports is more important than ever,” says Jillien Meier, Managing Director of the No Kid Hungry campaign. “We’re excited by what we learned from the first round of grantees and look forward to partnering with APHSA to grow this work so more kids and families can get the food they need to thrive.”

The first cohort of CSNS sites demonstrated the need for a sharpened focus on supporting community-driven government to advance equity priorities across agencies and sectors. As a result, for the second cohort of sites, both agencies and community organizations will hold an equal stake in projects, co-creating unique solutions to fit the needs of their communities. 

To further embed human-centered design and community voice, this grant is guided by APHSA’s Community Impact Council —a group of six individuals with lived expertise navigating the benefits system. The Community Impact Council evaluated proposals through a customer-centered lens, complementing APHSA and Share Our Strength’s proposal reviews. The Community Impact Council’s diverse personal and professional experiences led to the selection of proposals that demonstrate promise to deepen the impact of SNAP and connected nutrition supports in joint partnership with trusted community partners. The members of this council will continue to serve as consultants, advising the administration of this grant.

Throughout the 24-month grant period, selected sites will leverage real time data, couple language justice with cultural humility and innovate the delivery of services to meet participants where they are with the goal of increasing access to SNAP and connected nutrition supports. The selected sites will also participate in cohort learning, sharing best practices and opportunities for policy and practice changes that promote equity and reduce hunger. 

“Our CSNS partnership with Share Our Strength is a game changer that is moving words into action to reengineer the way we deliver benefits within the human services sector,” says Matt Lyons, Senior Director of Policy and Practice at APHSA. “Designing solutions together with community advances equity and shifts culture within the public sector while creating tangible, lasting value for children and families.”

The following grantees have been selected:

• Caroline County Department of Social Services and Caroline County Board of Education, Maryland
• Illinois Department of Human Services and the Greater Chicago Food Depository
• North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Child and Family Well-Being and Meals4Families
• San Francisco Human Services Agency and the San Francisco Marin Food Bank 

Learn more about the funded projects below. 

• Caroline County Department of Social Services and Caroline County Board of Education will provide a coordinated approach to supporting resource connections for residents of two high poverty under-resourced geographic areas in the county to enroll eligible residents into SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, as well as and other financial assistance programs to assist families with household stability.
• Illinois Department of Human Services and the Greater Chicago Food Depository will connect the data pathways between the Illinois Department of Human Services and Illinois State Board of Education to increase the number of children that receive SNAP benefits.
• North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Child and Family Well-Being and Meals4Families will provide family-centered SNAP enrollment support through community-based partnerships with schools, health systems, county DSS offices, and state agencies, empowered by novel statewide cross-enrollment data for Medicaid, SNAP and WIC.
• San Francisco Human Services Agency and the San Francisco Marin Food Bank will pilot a full service, mobile benefits office in communities most at risk of hunger and at locations where people already receive food support.