The Impact of Our Advocacy
Our voices have been heard!
Last month, Governor Newsom signed a state budget that protects critical nutrition programs and makes great strides towards ending hunger, including:
- Permanent food bank funding for natural disasters
- Continued free school meals for all and Summer EBT when school is out
- Protection of the pilot program that takes the first step towards raising the minimum monthly CalFresh benefit from $23 to $50
- Funding for diaper banks
- An increase in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for older adults and people living with disabilities
- Protection of all core CalWORKs programs and services for low income households
If there’s anything this year has taught us so far, it’s that advocacy wins like these cannot be taken for granted.
We still have a lot of work to do. For example: continuing to fight for Food4All, which strives to include income-eligible Californians in critical food assistance benefits, regardless of immigration status or age.
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“We are removing both the financial barrier as well as the access barrier to fresh food,” said Carolina, the Food Security Program Coordinator at our agency partner, Unity Council. “Many of the residents in the Fruitvale community are low-income or unemployed, and with inflation, groceries are so expensive.”
