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NEWS FROM WASHINGTON

Shelley Rood

AJFCA Washington Director

                           Monday, March 12, 2012 

White House Conference Call/Video Challenge on Healthy Lifestyles for Children

 

You are invited to a national Let's Move! Conference Call for faith and community leaders.  On Wednesday, March 14th at 2:00 PM Eastern, Sam Kass, White House Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives, will join with faith and community leaders by conference call to invite participation in the Communities on the Move Video Challenge. The Video Challenge encourages faith-based and neighborhood organizations to create one-to-three minute videos highlighting their work to make their communities healthier. Winners will be invited to visit Washington, DC to share their videos with the First Lady at the White House. Organizations have until Friday, April 6th to enter the Video Challenge. The Challenge is part of Let's Move Faith and Communities, which engages congregations and neighborhood organizations in the effort to end childhood obesity within a generation.

 

Date: Wednesday, March 14th
Time: 2:00pm ET, 1:00pm CT, 12:00pm MT, 11:00am PT

Dial-in information: 1-800-288-8960

 

Join the Let's Move Faith and Communities network of supporters by signing up online.  Please forward this invitation to your members and partners.  You do not need to RSVP for this call. If you have questions, please email [email protected].

Sign Letter to Support WIC

 

AJFCA has joined with a coalition of organizations to cosign a letter to Congress in support of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).  WIC is a short-term, mission-driven preventive public health nutrition program designed to influence lifetime nutrition and health behaviors in a targeted, high-risk population. WIC provides nutrition and breastfeeding education, nutritious foods, and improved healthcare access for low- and moderate -income women and children with, or at risk of developing, nutrition-related health problems. Nationally, WIC serves approximately 9 million mothers and young children per month, including 53% of all infants in the U.S.  Your agency is invited to cosign this letter.  Please review the text of the letter  and email Samantha Lee with your organization name and contact information by COB Friday, March 23, 2012 if you choose to sign on. Please cc Shelley Rood and feel free to contact Shelley with any questions.

Emergency Food & Shelter Program

 

JFNA-Washington, in collaboration with AJFCA, met with senior staff on the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee to discuss the outlook for EFSP (and other issues) within the FY2013 HLS Appropriations bill. This program has seen a drop in funding over the past two funding cycles by 40%.

 

While the Subcommittee staff reiterated their genuine support for EFSP, it is a quirky program within FEMA - they said - that does not generate a broad or natural coalition of support in Congress.

 

To help turn that around, and knowing how important it is to appropriations decisions, that the Subcommittee receive broad support for the initiatives they fund, it was recommended that JFNA and AJFCA work to generate appropriation request letters from members of the US Senate. In the next couple of weeks, JFNA-Washington, with the help of AJFCA, will develop a template and talking points to distribute to the field to be used in requests for the generation of Senate letters and their submission to the HLS Appropriations Subcommittee.  We will share this template and further guidance when it becomes available. Please contact Shelley Rood  with questions.