Florida Partnership to End Childhood Hunger

Florida Impact has partnered with Share Our Strength (www.strength.org) and the Food Research and Action Center (www.frac.org) to replicate a multi-year Ten Point Plan to End Childhood Hunger, which was first piloted in the Nation's Capitol. The Florida Partnership to End Childhood Hunger comprises more than 50 organizations around the state whose shared goal is to make Florida the first state in the nation to end childhood hunger.

The Partnership was formally launched in Orlando on October 26th by a Core Advisory Group (PDF file, 133 KB), comprising a broad sector of Florida leaders concerned with childhood hunger. Grace Nelson (wife of U.S. Senator Bill Nelson) is serving as Honorary Chair. Impact has contracted MGT of America to help facilitate meetings leading up to the final Strategic Plan, which was released at the Capitol in March 2008. The Ten Point Plan can be viewed at 2007 Ten Point Plan (PDF file, 957 KB).

Though this is a statewide, multi-year initiative, we will begin implementation in eight target counties grouped into three regions: Orange, Polk, and Osceola counties; Hillsborough and Pinellas counties; and Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. These were selected after statistical analyses determined which counties would deliver the most dramatic progress in the shortest amount of time, so we can point to their success in continued efforts to raise money for implementation in Florida's remaining 59 counties.

The Partnership proposes to address childhood hunger by drawing down and applying more of the existing but underutilized federal dollar entitlement for Florida communities as well as by increasing awareness of the Earned Income Tax Credit for low wage, working families. Counting only three of the federal food and nutrition programs, Florida did not use over $1 billion allotted for eligible families in 2006 (see Potential Unused Federal Dollars by County PDF file, 15 KB).