Let’s Move to ensure that all families have access to healthy, affordable food in their communities.
As part of the President’s proposed FY 2011 budget, the Administration announced a new program – the Healthy Food Financing Initiative — a partnership between the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Agriculture and Health and Human Services which will invest $400 million a year to provide innovative financing to bring grocery stores to underserved areas and help places such as convenience stores and bodegas carry healthier food options. Grants will also help bring farmers markets and fresh foods into underserved communities, boosting both family health and local economies. Through these initiatives and private sector engagement, the Administration will work to eliminate food deserts across the country within seven years.
This Spring, LetsMove.gov will unveil specialized tool kits and strategies to help increase access to healthy, affordable food in communities across the country
Are you in a “Food Desert”? MO wants to “help” you . . .
Let’s Move ^ | Let’s Move
Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2010
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2537015/posts
MS. BARNES: —and to prepare a healthy meal—meals for their student population. So, it includes issues like that. It’s received widespread support. We’re looking for additional support and additional funding for that. There’s another initiative—a big part of this—one of our important goals deals with access to healthy foods and vegetables in communities. There are some communities that are considered “food deserts,” places where people can’t get fresh, nutritious food, where there isn’t a grocery store in a mile or two within a person’s home.
MR. ALLEN: This is—this is usually inner cities, always inner cities?
MS. BARNES: It actually—it’s a—both an urban and a rural problem.
MR. ALLEN: Okay.
MS. BARNES: I think people find that really interesting when they think about rural America they think about farms and access to really—
MR. ALLEN: Mm-hmm.
MS. BARNES: —wonderful, healthy foods, but there are food deserts in rural areas, as well. What we want to do, and what the President included in his budget is an initiative to lev—use public funds to leverage even larger private dollars to put the grocery stores in communities where they don’t exist and also some really creative and innovative ways—for example, mobile grocery stores, where you’re moving those into communities where there’s not a lot of population density—
MS. BARNES: —but you want to make sure that people have access to those fresh fruits and vegetables.
MR. ALLEN: Funding—it’s not a small thing, but in addition to funding, is there anything specific you’re asking Congress to do? Are you try—trying to change any laws or just behavior?
MS. BARNES: Well, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill is a key example.
Again, by providing additional resources for school breakfasts and school lunch, to make sure that they’re meeting the nutritional guidelines, reduced amounts of sugars and salt and other things, and the portions that we’re serving children at school. You know, we’ve been involved in the school lunch and breakfast program since World War II. So, that’s an area where the federal government actually has a role and has had a role for many, many decades. So, that’s an area that we think is very important and we hope Congress will act on, along with the resources for the healthy food financing initiative that I also mentioned.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37257_Page4.html#ixzz0rAfXZhDW