Congressman, Advocates and Local Elected Officials to Decry Crippling Cuts to Critical Food Assistance Program
New Brunswick, NJ – On Monday, December 2nd, 2013 at 10:30 a.m., Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) will visit Elijah’s Promise in New Brunswick, New Jersey, decrying cuts to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) on the heels of House Republicans’ latest effort to disable the program. In September, Republican leadership in the House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill to cut roughly $39 billion from the SNAP program over the next decade.
Pallone will be joined by New Brunswick Mayor Jim Cahill, Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula, Lisanne Finston, Executive Director, Elijah’s Promise and Adele LaTourette, Director, New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition.
According to the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition, 394,240 children in New Jersey were living in food insecure households in 2011. More than 15% of Americans, including 22% of all American children, live in poverty. SNAP provides a basic nutrition benefit to many low-income Americans, including senior citizens and children, and has largely eliminated severe hunger and malnutrition in the United States. The Republican effort to further cut SNAP would mean more Americans, including children, will go hungry and malnourished, and an influx of pressure would be put on our community soup kitchens. The $39 billion in SNAP cuts would come on top of $5 billion in across-the-board SNAP benefit cuts that already went into effect on November 1st due to an expiring provision included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that provided a modest boost in SNAP benefits.
Elijah’s Promise is a community soup kitchen, culinary arts school, catering business, and pay-as-you-can café that connects low-income individuals and families with social and health services. Elijah’s Promise serves 100,000 meals per year and trains previously unskilled workers for careers in the food service industry.
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