CALV Exec. Director attends White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health
The executive director of Community Action Lehigh Valley, Dawn Godshall, was invited to Washington, DC to attend the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health on Wednesday, September 28th. The Biden-Harris Administration hosted the event to release a National Strategy to end hunger by 2030. A conference of this kind has not been held in over 50 years.
“I was honored to have been invited,” said Godshall. “I am grateful that our government is paying attention to this issue. Our country is facing a huge increase in diet-related diseases which disproportionately affects people of color and poorer communities. While we may never really end hunger altogether, it’s an admirable goal, and one in which I am hopeful that progress can be made toward alleviating food insecurity in one of the wealthiest nations in the world.”
The White House Conference brought together local governments, private businesses, food companies, grocery stores, nonprofits, researchers and healthcare providers to spotlight the issues of food insecurity that impacts one-in-ten Americans.
Opening remarks at the Conference were given by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas Vilsack, followed shortly thereafter by President Joe Biden. “It’s been over 50 years since President Nixon convened the original White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health,” said President Biden. “Since that time, advances in research and medicine have taught us so much more about nutrition and health. I believe we can use these advances to do even more to make America a stronger and healthier nation.”
The conference listed five areas (pillars) that addressed: improving food access and affordability; integrating nutrition and health; making healthy food choices; supporting physical activity and enhancing nutrition; and food security research.
Assuring that all Americans are economically secure is one of the ways the strategy plans to address affordability. Increasing the child care tax credit is one of the avenues the administration says it plans to take to put more money in the pockets of parents who need it.
In early September, the USDA announced $2 billion in additional funding to food banks and school meal programs for purchasing American-grown foods. This helps the economy, local farmers and families. The Biden-Harris Administration also discussed increasing SNAP benefits as well as decreasing the paperwork, documentation and other requirements for people to increase access and eliminate barriers to obtaining more food and healthier foods.
One of the strategies to address diet-related diseases is to increase healthy eating and physical activity, and by providing more affordable access to fresh fruits, vegetables and proteins to help families mitigate some of these nutrition-based illnesses.
Among the many political icons who attended and spoke at the Conference were the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff; Ambassador Susan Rice, Dr. Rachel Levine, New York City Mayor Eric Adams; U.S. Rep. James McGovern, and NJ Sen. Corey Booker. The President encouraged the effort to be a bipartisan issue.
“This is something we should be rallying our whole country to work on together,” said President Biden, “because no matter what else divides us, if a parent cannot feed a child, nothing else matters.”
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