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Child Hunger Prevention
Hunger is a health issue, and the best solution to any public health problem is prevention. To prevent child hunger in our state and to keep our kids healthy, Project Bread created the Massachusetts Child Hunger Initiative (MCHI) in 1998.
The concept behind MCHI is simple: provide food as an ordinary fact of life for hungry children where they live, learn, and play.
MCHI aims to prevent child hunger by increasing participation in federal nutrition programs that already exist. By partnering with local organizations, we are building a seamless child nutrition safety net that takes children out of food pantry lines and feeds them in their everyday environments.
To achieve this goal, MCHI provides grants to schools and community organizations in 32 low-income towns in the state that have the highest rates of hunger. These partnerships let children receive benefits meals in school, summer meals when school is out, healthy snacks at after-school programs, and better nutrition at home because of food stamps.
Specifically, MCHI uses the following strategies:
- Engage community leaders
- Remove barriers to enrollment in the Food Stamp Program
- Partner with community health centers to identify hungry families
- Streamline the application process for free school meals
- Reduce the stigma of school breakfast
- Improve the nutritional quality of breakfast meals
- Add meals for children at summer recreation sites and after-school programs
- Conduct outreach and public education to promote the federal nutrition programs
At Project Bread, we are keenly aware of the mixture of gratitude and shame that comes with standing in line for a free bag of groceries. Emergency programs save lives; there’s no doubt about it. But building good nutrition into the daily activities of a low-income child prevents hunger and eliminates stigma. It keeps children where they belong — at home, at school, and at after-school or summer recreation programs.
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