Hunger Action Day A Success

Hunger Action Day 2011 was a great success.  This year, St. Anthony’s brought a busload of 50 participants to Hunger Action Day, the highest number of participants that we’ve ever had!  St. Anthony’s guests, volunteers and staff joined community partners from St. Boniface, Community Housing Partnership, and  Dolores Street Community Services to educate our legislators about hunger in our communities.

Here at St. Anthony’s, as we have seen an unprecedented growth in demand for our food programs.  We respond to this growing need not only by serving more food, but also by working together with our community for social justice.  On Hunger Action Day, we asked our legislators to make fair budgeting decisions, to reform California’s under-performing CalFresh program, to support local growers who want to donate produce to California food banks, and to support community reentry by removing the ban on CalFresh from people with drug related convictions.

Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes (pictured above, addressing Hunger Action Day participants) authored two of our Hunger Action Day bills: AB 6, which simplifies and improves the CalFresh program and AB 152, which encourages California growers to donate fresh produce to food banks to distribute to people in need.

In the afternoon, we met in small groups with representatives from the offices of our four San Francisco legislators: Assemblymembers Tom Ammiano and Fiona Ma and Senators Mark Leno and Leland Yee.  The legislative visits are always my favorite part of Hunger Action Day because people who are directly experiencing hunger get a chance to talk to policy makers about their experiences and ideas about how the state can improve anti-hunger programs.

Check out our Hunger Action Day photo album on our Facebook Page and stay tuned to our blog for more information about how to support our Hunger Action Day bills.