In his statement on the Phase III results of the clinical trial for malaria vaccine candidate RTS,S, Peter Hotez, the president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene says the accomplishment – “more than 24 years in the making” … “is a true testimony to perseverance in public health.” @ http://www.astmh.org/RTSS_Statement_101911.htm
Hotez should know. He’s devoted his life to developing cures for the parasitic diseases that take a terrible toll in the developing world but are all but ignored by much of modern science. Like the great cathedral builders who devoted their lives to efforts they would not see finished, these vaccine developers persevere.
Because of his commitment to solving problems that affect people so voiceless and economically marginalized that there are no markets for serving them, I included Hotez in my recent book The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, where you can read more about his life and career. @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Remarkable Results from No Kid Hungry campaign in Arkansas
On Friday I was in Little Rock with Governor Beebe to celebrate the first anniversary of our No Kid Hungry campaign in Arkansas, and ro recommit ourselves to even great investment there. Arkansas is a poor state that a year ago ranked first in the nation in food insecurity. But that was before we launched No Kid Hungry’s signature mix of public-private partnership that includes:
gubernatorial leadership: not only the Governor and his wife but his senior staff and relevant cabinet officials
local corporate involvement: WalMart, Tyson Foods, The Midwest Dairy Council
leveraging federal food and nutrition programs like school breakfast, SNAP and summer meals,
coordinated action with nonprofit partners: the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance
an unprecedented level of collaboration among all of the above (which virtually everyone credits to Share Our Strength)
The results are compelling:
an increase in summer meals sites between from 330 in 2010 to 440 in 2011, with the addition of programs in 14 counties that did not have any summer meals at all
an increase in after-school meals sites from 48-119 or 248%
six schools piloting breakfast in the classroom, which won a strong endorsement from First Lady Ginger Beebe who has nicknamed it “Desk Top Dining”.
Cooking Matters pilots in 4 sites
SNAP enrollment up from 71% of eligible to 84% bringing $740 million of SNAP benefits to the state.
What is palpable wjhen visiting Arkansas is the degree to which the conversation has changed – in every corner of the state and at every level of state government – from feeding kids to ending childhood hunger, and to doing so through our No Kid Hungry strategy of focusing on increasing access, outreach and participation in programs like school breakfast, summer meals, and SNAP.
gubernatorial leadership: not only the Governor and his wife but his senior staff and relevant cabinet officials
local corporate involvement: WalMart, Tyson Foods, The Midwest Dairy Council
leveraging federal food and nutrition programs like school breakfast, SNAP and summer meals,
coordinated action with nonprofit partners: the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance
an unprecedented level of collaboration among all of the above (which virtually everyone credits to Share Our Strength)
The results are compelling:
an increase in summer meals sites between from 330 in 2010 to 440 in 2011, with the addition of programs in 14 counties that did not have any summer meals at all
an increase in after-school meals sites from 48-119 or 248%
six schools piloting breakfast in the classroom, which won a strong endorsement from First Lady Ginger Beebe who has nicknamed it “Desk Top Dining”.
Cooking Matters pilots in 4 sites
SNAP enrollment up from 71% of eligible to 84% bringing $740 million of SNAP benefits to the state.
What is palpable wjhen visiting Arkansas is the degree to which the conversation has changed – in every corner of the state and at every level of state government – from feeding kids to ending childhood hunger, and to doing so through our No Kid Hungry strategy of focusing on increasing access, outreach and participation in programs like school breakfast, summer meals, and SNAP.
A scientist whose tools are microscope and macroscope
Thanks to Dr. Peter Hotez, neglected tropical diseases are neglected no more. His vision for a National School of Tropical Medicine has come true and in the fall of 2012 he will accept the first class for the School at the Baylor College of Medicine. @ http://www.bcm.edu/news/item.cfm?newsID=4609
Hotez has not only been a brilliant researcher of parasitic diseases that plague the developing world and that the developed world has or too long ignored. He has also found a way to finally ensure that this work achieves more prominence. He’s used both the microscope is his work, and through the National School of Tropical Medicine has created a “macroscope” to bring that work before a larger audience.
Hotez not only employs science, but innovation, entrepreneurship and communications skills. For these reasons I included a profile of him in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, which uses the race to develop the first malaria vaccine as a way of writing about how you solve problems affecting people so vulnerable, voiceless and marginalized that there are no markets for solving them. @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1
As a voice for the voiceless, his is one to which we must listen.
Hotez has not only been a brilliant researcher of parasitic diseases that plague the developing world and that the developed world has or too long ignored. He has also found a way to finally ensure that this work achieves more prominence. He’s used both the microscope is his work, and through the National School of Tropical Medicine has created a “macroscope” to bring that work before a larger audience.
Hotez not only employs science, but innovation, entrepreneurship and communications skills. For these reasons I included a profile of him in The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, which uses the race to develop the first malaria vaccine as a way of writing about how you solve problems affecting people so vulnerable, voiceless and marginalized that there are no markets for solving them. @ http://www.amazon.com/Imaginations-Unreasonable-Men-Inspiration-Purpose/dp/1586487647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303909402&sr=1-1
As a voice for the voiceless, his is one to which we must listen.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
lessons in "eradication", whether malaria or childhood hunger
On Tuesday while we were at our staff retreat in Baltimore the Gates Foundation was hosting a forum in Seattle with 300 scientists from around the world to release the latest information about its campaign to eradicate malaria. I wrote The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men because I thought there were so many lessons to be learned from that work that were directly applicable to our goal of ending childhood hunger. Tuesday’s results only reinforced that belief. There were three specific points worth noting.
First, In a report published by Roll Back Malaria at the start of the forum, it was shown that seven countries recently eliminated malaria (their “proof of concept” countries) and that up to a third of the 108 countries where malaria is endemic are moving toward being able to eliminate it. The results were widely reported and seen as inspiring more nations and donors to join the fight.
Second, results were released of the largest clinical trial ever of a malaria vaccine – RTS,S (a competitor to Steve Hoffman who I wrote about) developed by GlaxoSmithKline after 25 years of research and more than $300 million spent. It was tested in more than 16,000 children across seven countries. Only half were protected. It is still considered a major milestone in malaria research, though as one prominent researcher pointed out underscoring the difficulty of eradication: “The reality is that malaria does fight back.”
Finally, In 2007 Gates and his wife Melinda urged the international community to fight for the global elimination of malaria saying that to aspire to anything less would be “timid”. On Tuesday Bill Gates, (sounding like Josh!) challenged the malaria community to be “smarter, faster, and more ambitious”. Gates added: “it will take leadership, innovation and money to plan for malaria’s eventual eradication.” It’s noteworthy that he put “leadership” first – precisely the point of our Conference of Leaders, and the key ingredient we must assess at every level of our work.
Billy
First, In a report published by Roll Back Malaria at the start of the forum, it was shown that seven countries recently eliminated malaria (their “proof of concept” countries) and that up to a third of the 108 countries where malaria is endemic are moving toward being able to eliminate it. The results were widely reported and seen as inspiring more nations and donors to join the fight.
Second, results were released of the largest clinical trial ever of a malaria vaccine – RTS,S (a competitor to Steve Hoffman who I wrote about) developed by GlaxoSmithKline after 25 years of research and more than $300 million spent. It was tested in more than 16,000 children across seven countries. Only half were protected. It is still considered a major milestone in malaria research, though as one prominent researcher pointed out underscoring the difficulty of eradication: “The reality is that malaria does fight back.”
Finally, In 2007 Gates and his wife Melinda urged the international community to fight for the global elimination of malaria saying that to aspire to anything less would be “timid”. On Tuesday Bill Gates, (sounding like Josh!) challenged the malaria community to be “smarter, faster, and more ambitious”. Gates added: “it will take leadership, innovation and money to plan for malaria’s eventual eradication.” It’s noteworthy that he put “leadership” first – precisely the point of our Conference of Leaders, and the key ingredient we must assess at every level of our work.
Billy
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
What we owe our partners and other stakeholders
I’m writing from my home away from home - National Airport - where I’m waiting out a 90 minute delay on a flight south. The concourse is filled with the usual assortment of software salesmen, lobbyists, lacrosse teams, U.S. Army Rangers, and electricity scavengers looking for a place to recharge iPads. We have little in common but the vague scent of Aunt Annie’s pretzels. Next to me is a man in a green t-shirt that says “Margaritaville on the back, and on the front “There’s Booze in the Blender” It’s a dark and rainy night and the plane looks like a small sparrow next to the 737s heading to New York and Boston. I am missing Rosemary and Nate and second-guessing my decision to try to inspire a small college’s undergraduates with the Share Our Strength story.
Distracting myself by plowing through e-mail, I just opened one that includes the audio message that John Miller, CEO of Denny’s, sent to his team about the Great American Dine Out (They have more than 700 restaurants participating.)
It’s not unusual for our corporate partners to issue communications to motivate their staff and get buy-in. But instead of reading it, I was able to listen to John’s voice as he talked – and as he described the impact Share Our Strength is having, what it means both nationally and at the community level. That must explain why this one hit me more personally.
What struck me is that not only are our partners committed and generous, but that they go to extraordinary lengths – taking risks actually – to vouch for us, to put their own reputation on the line – to link the brand they’ve worked day and night to build to our brand and especially to our brand promise that we will end childhood hunger.
From Whole Food, William-Sonoma and WalMart to Jimmy Dean, Hickory Farm, Denny’s – and everyone in between – men and women with their own businesses and careers to worry about are sticking their necks out further than they have to on our behalf. They are giving testimony in the most public way, that Share Our Strength is where you want to place your bet. Their employees, whose engagement is so critical to Dine Out and our other partnership promotions, know us mostly through what their management tells them. And what they are hearing is that we make a difference, and that while we still have a long way to go, we are going to end childhood hunger.
Humbling, ain’t it? Scary too. There are more people counting on us than we could ever count, more people investing their hopes in us than we could ever have hoped for. It is not only America’s hungry children (as if that weren’t enough) to whom we owe our best, but many others to whom we’ve given our promise as well. Makes it hard to complain about small planes to small towns on dark and rainy nights. Makes it seem more like an honor.
Distracting myself by plowing through e-mail, I just opened one that includes the audio message that John Miller, CEO of Denny’s, sent to his team about the Great American Dine Out (They have more than 700 restaurants participating.)
It’s not unusual for our corporate partners to issue communications to motivate their staff and get buy-in. But instead of reading it, I was able to listen to John’s voice as he talked – and as he described the impact Share Our Strength is having, what it means both nationally and at the community level. That must explain why this one hit me more personally.
What struck me is that not only are our partners committed and generous, but that they go to extraordinary lengths – taking risks actually – to vouch for us, to put their own reputation on the line – to link the brand they’ve worked day and night to build to our brand and especially to our brand promise that we will end childhood hunger.
From Whole Food, William-Sonoma and WalMart to Jimmy Dean, Hickory Farm, Denny’s – and everyone in between – men and women with their own businesses and careers to worry about are sticking their necks out further than they have to on our behalf. They are giving testimony in the most public way, that Share Our Strength is where you want to place your bet. Their employees, whose engagement is so critical to Dine Out and our other partnership promotions, know us mostly through what their management tells them. And what they are hearing is that we make a difference, and that while we still have a long way to go, we are going to end childhood hunger.
Humbling, ain’t it? Scary too. There are more people counting on us than we could ever count, more people investing their hopes in us than we could ever have hoped for. It is not only America’s hungry children (as if that weren’t enough) to whom we owe our best, but many others to whom we’ve given our promise as well. Makes it hard to complain about small planes to small towns on dark and rainy nights. Makes it seem more like an honor.
Friday, October 7, 2011
When poltical calculation becomes politcal callousness
I’m en route from Boston to Anchorage, Alaska. During the course of ten hours in the air it’s hard to not be impressed with what a vast country ours is, and just how formidable is the task of ending childhood hunger, or solving any major national problem for that matter. I’m making the trip at the invitation of the Alaska World Affairs Council, and partly to satisfy my desire to get to the only one of the fifty states to which I have not yet been.
Such a long journey guarantees that rare opportunity to read every single article in the newspaper. What I read today reinforced the vital responsibility that both Share Our Strength and CWV have to be a voice, even if a lonely one, for those whose voices are not heard.
The New York Times reported on the latest round of skirmishing between Democrats and Republicans over taxes and spending, almost all of it designed to score political points rather than impact the economy. In another article, about the team guiding President Obama’s re-election, his top political adviser David Plouffe, asserts that Obama offers the American people the choice “of a president who says ‘Every decision I make is focused on the middle class.’”
What about the rest of the country? 46.2 million Americans now live below the poverty line. I wonder what it feels like to hear that they are not even in the scope of the President’s work, let alone a priority.
Plouffe’s comments have bothered me all day, especially for how deliberate they were. His enforcement of message discipline is legendary in political circles. His carefully chosen words were meant to be music to the ears of many Americans who fit squarely into that most popular and potent of all political cohorts: the election-deciding middle class. They of course have legitimate wants and needs, but at least they have a voice. What of those who don’t?
We have reached a new low when political leaders and their spokespeople actually brag about representing not all of the nation, but only a portion of the population, albeit a politically powerful one. Political calculation has morphed into political callousness.
Presidents are uniquely elected to set a higher and unifying national standard. When they don’t the bar is lowered for everyone else. That’s apparent in Congress’s response to the President’s jobs bill, which Thursday’s NY Times also discusses in its lead editorial. Not only is the jobs legislation during this unemployment crisis being held up by the president’s Republican adversaries, but also by members of his own party who lack the courage to advocate government action that may be politically unpopular.
From 37,000 feet up here somewhere between Boston and Alaska, looking down at the farms and factories, at the small towns and schools where children were taught that Presidents act on their behalf no matter which class they belong to, America looks fertile and full of possibility. But our leaders no longer see the whole, as one can from this vantage point. They have instead narrowed their vision to see only what is small and advantageous in the short-term. As a result they perpetuate the smallness, the narrowness, and the division. By such actions they are choosing to follow rather than to lead. The only remedy is for others to lead, for citizens and community organization to act not on behalf of a class, but on behalf of a country. That remains our work, more important now than ever.
Such a long journey guarantees that rare opportunity to read every single article in the newspaper. What I read today reinforced the vital responsibility that both Share Our Strength and CWV have to be a voice, even if a lonely one, for those whose voices are not heard.
The New York Times reported on the latest round of skirmishing between Democrats and Republicans over taxes and spending, almost all of it designed to score political points rather than impact the economy. In another article, about the team guiding President Obama’s re-election, his top political adviser David Plouffe, asserts that Obama offers the American people the choice “of a president who says ‘Every decision I make is focused on the middle class.’”
What about the rest of the country? 46.2 million Americans now live below the poverty line. I wonder what it feels like to hear that they are not even in the scope of the President’s work, let alone a priority.
Plouffe’s comments have bothered me all day, especially for how deliberate they were. His enforcement of message discipline is legendary in political circles. His carefully chosen words were meant to be music to the ears of many Americans who fit squarely into that most popular and potent of all political cohorts: the election-deciding middle class. They of course have legitimate wants and needs, but at least they have a voice. What of those who don’t?
We have reached a new low when political leaders and their spokespeople actually brag about representing not all of the nation, but only a portion of the population, albeit a politically powerful one. Political calculation has morphed into political callousness.
Presidents are uniquely elected to set a higher and unifying national standard. When they don’t the bar is lowered for everyone else. That’s apparent in Congress’s response to the President’s jobs bill, which Thursday’s NY Times also discusses in its lead editorial. Not only is the jobs legislation during this unemployment crisis being held up by the president’s Republican adversaries, but also by members of his own party who lack the courage to advocate government action that may be politically unpopular.
From 37,000 feet up here somewhere between Boston and Alaska, looking down at the farms and factories, at the small towns and schools where children were taught that Presidents act on their behalf no matter which class they belong to, America looks fertile and full of possibility. But our leaders no longer see the whole, as one can from this vantage point. They have instead narrowed their vision to see only what is small and advantageous in the short-term. As a result they perpetuate the smallness, the narrowness, and the division. By such actions they are choosing to follow rather than to lead. The only remedy is for others to lead, for citizens and community organization to act not on behalf of a class, but on behalf of a country. That remains our work, more important now than ever.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Why We Can Succeed in Ending Childhood Hunger (Remarks at Autumn Harvest Dinner)
Thank you so much for being with us for such a special evening. I’ve had the privilege of speaking to you from this podium 18 times now, during good times and bad, but never at a moment as pivotal as this.
I’m grateful that Savannah Guthrie is here, and grateful to Kim DiPalo and Danny and everyone on their team for such support. I do want to say a word about Danny Meyer, because there is no one in the country who has made a bigger difference in our success – and we now have an annual budget of $37 million a year – than Danny has as a mentor, leader, champion and friend. The recent New York Times magazine cover story told of how successful he’s been, but it didn’t say what he has done with his success, to what purpose he has put his success, and it is that which I admire most about him because Danny is not only a successful business leader he is a leader in the community and an example of what inspired citizenship can achieve. The reason it wasn’t in the magazine is that it would take an entire book to describe his accomplishments. Fortunately that book is being written today in the smiles of children who have been fed, and on the bodies of children who are strong and healthy because of Danny’s support and leadership.
As I thought about how to describe for you the special blend of idealism and pragmatism that I think is at the heart of Share Our Strength’s effectiveness, I was once again helped by the words of our six year old son Nate. He spends a lot of the summer in Maine at a small cottage we have on the water.
Recently a neighbor came over and said “I had an interesting talk with your son.” This is the moment I begin to hold my breath. Anyhow, this man on the beach comes over and says “I had an interesting talk with your son. I was building a sand castle down by the water’s edge with my son”, he continued” and your son came over to us, hands on hips and said: “Just so you know, I’ve seen a lot of these and they’re always gone by morning.”
Well many of us might say the same about some of the causes and campaigns that we’ve seen come and go, be it the war on poverty, the war on drugs, climate change, even hunger. But I’m here tonight to tell you that this time is different. We’ve got a dream but it’s not built on sand. In fact it’s got a more solid foundation than anything I’ve seen before.
Here’s why it’s different. Hunger is a problem, but it is a problem with a solution. In fact the extent of the problem has never been greater. 46.2 million Americans live below the poverty line and 20 million of them live in deep poverty, families of four living on less than $11,500 a year. 44 million are on food stamps and half are kids. Secretary Vilsack told me that one of every two kids in this country will be on food assistance at some point in their lifetime. Today’s generation of children faces hard times worse than anything since the Great Depression.
The solution has to do with two facts:
First, kids are not hungry because we lack food or food programs but because they lack access to those programs. 20 million kids get a free school lunch but only 9 million get breakfast and only 3 million get meals in the summer when the schools are closed. Even though all 20 million are eligible. The reason they lack access is that sometimes they aren’t aware of the program, but most times the state or city where they live hasn’t set the program up.
Second, and this may be Washington D.C.’s best kept billion dollar secret, the food in the programs these kids lack access to is already paid for, it’s costs are 100% federally reimbursed. It buys milk from local dairy farmers, break from local bakeries. But the money doesn’t flow until the kids actually participate.
Here’s the catch: These kids are not only vulnerable but voiceless. They don’t belong to organizations and they don’t have lobbyists. There is no greater testament to their voicelessness than the fact that $1 billion has been allocated for their needs and they are not getting it. These are federal entitlement programs but not the programs that have given entitlements a bad reputation. They are not drivers of the national debt. They represent the bipartisan wisdom of our predecessors, the wisdom that says kids are the most vulnerable and the least responsible for the situation in which they find themselves, and something as basic as whether or not they eat should not be subject to the prevailing political winds of the moment.
So what we do at Share Our Strength, in its very simplest terms, is work with governors and mayors, nonprofits and businesses, in public-private partnership, to identify the barriers to kids participating in programs like summer meals and school breakfast. And then we knock those barriers down. If it means working with community organizations to set up additional sites, that’s what we do. If it means putting ads on radio stations to make parents aware of where their kids can get food, we do that too.
• Maryland: In August 2010, there has been a 45% increase in participation in summer meal programs over the previous year.
• Arkansas: They have nearly doubled the number of summer meals sites where families can access free summer meals.
• Colorado: There has been a 66% increase in the number of kids who are participating in school breakfast programs in the two years.
• Washington State: There has been a 64% increase in participation in SNAP in Washington State.
And we were recently joined by Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia in making this a truly bipartisan effort, and an important regional one, with Maryland Governor O’Malley, to end childhood hunger.
I hope what we are doing sounds good. But I also hope you will agree that good is not good enough. Why? Because Martin Luther King once said “In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood, it ebbs.” Despite our success there are still too many children for whom we are too late. The spectacular results we are getting in Arkansas have not found their way to Texas. The progress we’ve seen in Maryland, has not reached Mississippi.
If you are in this room tonight because you believe we can change the world, I hope you will agree that there is no higher likelihood of accomplishing that than by helping us address this problem with the solution I’ve described.
We’ve got a diversity of interests in this room, and many of you have numerous other community and philanthropic commitments. But we’ve come together because we believe that children are the most vulnerable and the least responsible for the position in which they find themselves. And it turns out that is one of the few things Democrats and Republicans have been able to agree on as well. And so do teachers, and doctors and Fortune 500 CEO’s and economists, and chefs, of whom some of the best in the world are here tonight. So this problem of hunger has a solution. Private efforts can’t take the place of vital public policy, but engaged and active citizens who put people ahead of politics, can show Washington the way.
We have worked too long and too hard and fought too many good fights to let our legacy be swept away by incoming tides of special interest and cynicism. We’ve worked too long and too hard and fought too many good fights to let our legacy be an America in which record numbers of kids go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, show up at school hungry, and become part of an economy and society weakened by such neglect.
So tonight I ask you to join me in ensuring that for my son Nate at the beach, and your own kids wherever they are, and for American children everywhere, that this time will be different, that this time what we build together will not be washed away like sand castles at high tide, that this time what we build together will be there in the morning, and will be there for the next generation, that this time what we build together will endure and inspire like the great cathedrals that have stood for hundreds of years.
This time what we build together will say to the world that we not only have a vision but a voice and that we have raised our voices together on behalf of those whose voices are not heard, and that rising together our voices finally changed the national conversation, that our voices unashamedly and finally made heard the idealism that brought us here in the first place, that our voices insisted that partisan politics should not only stop at the water’s edge but at the doorstep of any home where young children need a chance and are depending on us to give it to them, that our hopeful voices finally achieved an America in which there is No Kid Hungry.
I’m grateful that Savannah Guthrie is here, and grateful to Kim DiPalo and Danny and everyone on their team for such support. I do want to say a word about Danny Meyer, because there is no one in the country who has made a bigger difference in our success – and we now have an annual budget of $37 million a year – than Danny has as a mentor, leader, champion and friend. The recent New York Times magazine cover story told of how successful he’s been, but it didn’t say what he has done with his success, to what purpose he has put his success, and it is that which I admire most about him because Danny is not only a successful business leader he is a leader in the community and an example of what inspired citizenship can achieve. The reason it wasn’t in the magazine is that it would take an entire book to describe his accomplishments. Fortunately that book is being written today in the smiles of children who have been fed, and on the bodies of children who are strong and healthy because of Danny’s support and leadership.
As I thought about how to describe for you the special blend of idealism and pragmatism that I think is at the heart of Share Our Strength’s effectiveness, I was once again helped by the words of our six year old son Nate. He spends a lot of the summer in Maine at a small cottage we have on the water.
Recently a neighbor came over and said “I had an interesting talk with your son.” This is the moment I begin to hold my breath. Anyhow, this man on the beach comes over and says “I had an interesting talk with your son. I was building a sand castle down by the water’s edge with my son”, he continued” and your son came over to us, hands on hips and said: “Just so you know, I’ve seen a lot of these and they’re always gone by morning.”
Well many of us might say the same about some of the causes and campaigns that we’ve seen come and go, be it the war on poverty, the war on drugs, climate change, even hunger. But I’m here tonight to tell you that this time is different. We’ve got a dream but it’s not built on sand. In fact it’s got a more solid foundation than anything I’ve seen before.
Here’s why it’s different. Hunger is a problem, but it is a problem with a solution. In fact the extent of the problem has never been greater. 46.2 million Americans live below the poverty line and 20 million of them live in deep poverty, families of four living on less than $11,500 a year. 44 million are on food stamps and half are kids. Secretary Vilsack told me that one of every two kids in this country will be on food assistance at some point in their lifetime. Today’s generation of children faces hard times worse than anything since the Great Depression.
The solution has to do with two facts:
First, kids are not hungry because we lack food or food programs but because they lack access to those programs. 20 million kids get a free school lunch but only 9 million get breakfast and only 3 million get meals in the summer when the schools are closed. Even though all 20 million are eligible. The reason they lack access is that sometimes they aren’t aware of the program, but most times the state or city where they live hasn’t set the program up.
Second, and this may be Washington D.C.’s best kept billion dollar secret, the food in the programs these kids lack access to is already paid for, it’s costs are 100% federally reimbursed. It buys milk from local dairy farmers, break from local bakeries. But the money doesn’t flow until the kids actually participate.
Here’s the catch: These kids are not only vulnerable but voiceless. They don’t belong to organizations and they don’t have lobbyists. There is no greater testament to their voicelessness than the fact that $1 billion has been allocated for their needs and they are not getting it. These are federal entitlement programs but not the programs that have given entitlements a bad reputation. They are not drivers of the national debt. They represent the bipartisan wisdom of our predecessors, the wisdom that says kids are the most vulnerable and the least responsible for the situation in which they find themselves, and something as basic as whether or not they eat should not be subject to the prevailing political winds of the moment.
So what we do at Share Our Strength, in its very simplest terms, is work with governors and mayors, nonprofits and businesses, in public-private partnership, to identify the barriers to kids participating in programs like summer meals and school breakfast. And then we knock those barriers down. If it means working with community organizations to set up additional sites, that’s what we do. If it means putting ads on radio stations to make parents aware of where their kids can get food, we do that too.
• Maryland: In August 2010, there has been a 45% increase in participation in summer meal programs over the previous year.
• Arkansas: They have nearly doubled the number of summer meals sites where families can access free summer meals.
• Colorado: There has been a 66% increase in the number of kids who are participating in school breakfast programs in the two years.
• Washington State: There has been a 64% increase in participation in SNAP in Washington State.
And we were recently joined by Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia in making this a truly bipartisan effort, and an important regional one, with Maryland Governor O’Malley, to end childhood hunger.
I hope what we are doing sounds good. But I also hope you will agree that good is not good enough. Why? Because Martin Luther King once said “In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood, it ebbs.” Despite our success there are still too many children for whom we are too late. The spectacular results we are getting in Arkansas have not found their way to Texas. The progress we’ve seen in Maryland, has not reached Mississippi.
If you are in this room tonight because you believe we can change the world, I hope you will agree that there is no higher likelihood of accomplishing that than by helping us address this problem with the solution I’ve described.
We’ve got a diversity of interests in this room, and many of you have numerous other community and philanthropic commitments. But we’ve come together because we believe that children are the most vulnerable and the least responsible for the position in which they find themselves. And it turns out that is one of the few things Democrats and Republicans have been able to agree on as well. And so do teachers, and doctors and Fortune 500 CEO’s and economists, and chefs, of whom some of the best in the world are here tonight. So this problem of hunger has a solution. Private efforts can’t take the place of vital public policy, but engaged and active citizens who put people ahead of politics, can show Washington the way.
We have worked too long and too hard and fought too many good fights to let our legacy be swept away by incoming tides of special interest and cynicism. We’ve worked too long and too hard and fought too many good fights to let our legacy be an America in which record numbers of kids go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, show up at school hungry, and become part of an economy and society weakened by such neglect.
So tonight I ask you to join me in ensuring that for my son Nate at the beach, and your own kids wherever they are, and for American children everywhere, that this time will be different, that this time what we build together will not be washed away like sand castles at high tide, that this time what we build together will be there in the morning, and will be there for the next generation, that this time what we build together will endure and inspire like the great cathedrals that have stood for hundreds of years.
This time what we build together will say to the world that we not only have a vision but a voice and that we have raised our voices together on behalf of those whose voices are not heard, and that rising together our voices finally changed the national conversation, that our voices unashamedly and finally made heard the idealism that brought us here in the first place, that our voices insisted that partisan politics should not only stop at the water’s edge but at the doorstep of any home where young children need a chance and are depending on us to give it to them, that our hopeful voices finally achieved an America in which there is No Kid Hungry.
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