RELEASE: Medicaid Food Security Network Funds Four Additional States to Address Food and Nutrition Insecurity

Share Our Strength has awarded four $100,000 grants through its Medicaid Food Security Network (MFSN) to state-based organizations to advance food security policy through advocacy or implementation support within their state Medicaid programs. Their strategies will include a special focus on increasing enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

MFSN aims to enhance food security and improve the health of children and families by leveraging Medicaid policy tools and flexibilities to expand access to SNAP, WIC, and other FIM programs. More than a third of the nearly 67 million Medicaid beneficiaries in the U.S. are children. Across these four states, nearly 6.8M people get healthcare through Medicaid, including 3.5M children.

Grantees

The following organizations will each receive the $100,000 award over 18 months, along with cohort learning opportunities and technical assistance focused on engaging with state Medicaid agencies and managed care organizations:

• New Growth (MO)
• North Carolina Food is Medicine Coalition
• Public Health Management Corporation (PA)
• West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition

“Now, more than ever, expanded access to Food is Medicine programs, SNAP and WIC is vital to the continued wellbeing of our families,” said Kelleen Zubick, managing director, Share Our Strength. “The Medicaid Food Security Network is dedicated to ensuring that organizations like those in this newest cohort of grantees can continue improving access to nutritious food resources so families and children can have more healthy choices. It’s exciting to see more organizations engaging with their state Medicaid programs to improve food and nutrition security in their regions.”

About the MFSN Co-Designers

Share Our Strength is working to end hunger and poverty in the United States and abroad. Through proven, effective campaigns like No Kid Hungry, we connect people who care to ideas that work.

HealthBegins partners with and trains courageous leaders to improve the social drivers of health and equity at all levels: individual social needs, community-level social determinants of health, and deeper structural determinants of health equity.