Meeting Minutes
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Meeting Minutes Meeting Date: March 15, 2019 Present: Kristal Ayne (Senior Solutions), Debra Belanger (Abbey Group), Sarah Burke (Southwestern Community Services WIC Program), Chelsea Canavan (Dartmouth Hitchcock), Zadiah Eisenberg (Children’s Community Lunch), Allyn Girard (Golden Cross Ambulance), Lauren Griswold (Vital Communities), Jaca Hughes (Abbey Group), Priscilla Hull (Claremont Soup Kitchen), Lynne Lorentsen (New Hampshire Food Bank), Jim McCracken (Willing Hands), Michael O’Neill (SAU6), Robin Peters (UNH Cooperative Extension), Beth Roy (Vital Communities), Kirsten Vigneault (Greater Sullivan County Public Health Network / Dartmouth Hitchcock), Deb White (Babysteps Family Assistance) Co-Chairs: Jennifer Fontaine (Upper Valley Haven, absent) and Gabe Zoerheide (Willing Hands) Hunger Free Vermont Staff: Tim Morgan, Oilvia Peña, and Jenna O’Donnell Welcome & Introductions Action Steps & Hunger Council members and guests shared brief introductions. Handouts: Gabe welcomed the group to the meeting, and explained the background of the Hunger Council of the Upper Valley, and how both Willing Hands and the Hunger Council have become involved in this region. As Chair of the Hunger Council, Gabe shared his interest in building stronger connections around anti-hunger work, and he hopes today’s meeting will be an opportunity to start conversations and make connections. Gabe asked attendees to share brief introductions, including how they are involved in the region. [NOTE: the introductions below are summaries; please contact individuals or organizations directly for more information.] Priscilla Hull (Claremont Soup Kitchen) – Priscilla is on the Board of the Soup Kitchen, which provides supports for both children and adults. The Claremont Soup Kitchen supplies food for food shelves in all of the schools in Claremont, and runs a summer lunch program for children and adults. Jim McCracken (Willing Hands) – Willing Hands has connected with Hemmingway Farm, and will be doing both more gleaning and deliveries in the area. Jim encouraged attendees to connect him with volunteers to help with gleaning. Beth Roy and Lauren Griswold (Vital Communities) – Beth is very involved in the regional local foods system, including farmers markets and schools. Beth and Lauren Griswald described the PoP Club (Power of Produce) program that helps children get involved and shop at farmers markets. Beth has been doing a lot of work recently on school meals. Chelsea Canavan (Dartmouth Hitchcock) – Chelsea is part of the Community Health Team at Dartmouth Hitchcock, and is interested in helping support programs or partnerships to connect the healthcare system with food and nutrition education. Robin Peters (University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension) – Sandy Trybulski covers Sullivan County but was unable to attend today’s meeting, so Robin (who works statewide) attended in her place. Extension provides nutrition education. Robin shared that she is also able to help school districts work on Wellness Policies and the Smarter Lunchroom movement. Deb White (Babysteps Family Assistance) – Deb refers a lot of the families she serves to many of the programs around the table, and works particularly closely with WIC in order to take care all of a families basic needs. Sarah Burke (Southwestern Community Services WIC Program) – Sarah is the local WIC program coordinator, and shared her appreciation for the produce she receives from Willing Hands. Southwest Community Services also helps with housing stabilization and other resources for the population. Kirsten Vigneault (Greater Sullivan County Public Health Network and Dartmouth Hitchcock) – Kirsten works with a lot of partners and agencies across the region, and is becoming increasing involved in food access issues. Lynne Lorentsen (New Hampshire Food Bank) – Lynne does SNAP outreach in New Hampshire. Kristal Ayne (Senior Solutions) – Kristal helps with SNAP outreach in southeastern Vermont and is involved in the Hunger Council of the Windham Region. Olivia Peña (Hunger Free Vermont) – Liv is part of Hunger Free Vermont’s Food Security Team, and focuses primarily on 3SquaresVT trainings and assistance. Liv also supports the Hunger Council For more of Franklin & Grand Isle Counties in northwestern Vermont. information on Liv invited attendees to an upcoming 3SquaresVT Basic Training – there will be 10 trainings the 3SquaresVT across Vermont, including one in White River Junction on March 25th, and are great Basic Trainings, opportunities for service providers or anyone interested in learning more about SNAP. click HERE. Zadiah Eisenberg (Children’s Community Lunch) – Zadiah runs the summer lunch program in Claremont. Allyn Girard (Golden Cross Ambulance) – Lynn is involved in the Claremont community and interested in supporting food access. Tim Morgan (Hunger Free Vermont) – Tim is part of Hunger Free Vermont’s Child Nutrition Team, and focuses mostly on helping schools and school districts navigate the complexity of federal nutrition programs. Tim also staffs the Hunger Council of the Upper Valley with Jenna. Jenna O’Donnell (Hunger Free Vermont) – Jenna staffs all 10 of Hunger Free Vermont’s Hunger Councils, which are groups that meet regularly to focus on different anti-hunger issues or programs. Jenna explained how the Hunger Council of the Upper Valley was brought together in 2015, and thanked the group for being involved in today’s meeting. Supporting the Schools and Community of Claremont In late October, news articles emerged that schools in Claremont were facing $32,000 in unpaid school meal debt. Thankfully, people from across New Hampshire and Vermont have stepped up to cover that cost, but it is unclear whether the cause of this situation has been fully addressed. Today’s meeting seeks to understand how school meals operate generally, how things are going in Claremont, and what opportunities exist to support the schools, the students, and the broader region. Michael O’Neill from SAU6, Jaca Hughes and Debra Belanger from the Abbey Group, and Danielle Skinner from the Claremont School District described the current situation in the Claremont School District’s food service and finances, and shared their perspectives on some of the challenges they face: Many families are barely ineligible for free or reduced price school meals, but can’t afford to pay for the meals. Some families, knowing that schools cannot refuse food to children, chose not to pay for the meals. Many families do not understand how to fill out school meal applications, and thus either do not pass in the applications at all, or fill them in incorrectly, which causes a lot of work to fix and means that some children don’t get identified as eligible for free or reduced price meals. There is a larger cultural problem that many families lack financial literacy or basic budgeting skills. Mike and Jaca pointed out that unpaid school meal debt is a challenge facing MANY schools in the state and country. Danielle Skinner and Jaca Hughes described how school meal applications are sent out, and the many various methods being tried to help families fill these out. Danielle described the two ways a child can be eligible for a free or reduced price meals: direct certification (when a household is already participating in another federal assistance program or meets a federally-defined category, e.g. participating in SNAP) or income-eligibility (when a household’s income falls under a certain federally-defined amount). Danielle described the process of filling out the application under both scenarios, but emphasized that many families aren’t doing this correctly. The group investigated the potential of making school meal applications available online. Danielle and Jaca shared that the applications are currently available online, but families using this option aren’t able to access the instructions that go out with the paper forms, thus causing some issues. Additionally, the application is not mobile-friendly. Danielle, Mike, Tim Morgan, and others described other challenges facing school meal eligibility administration, including having siblings with different last names, and having families who are eligible for free or reduced price meals move into the school district but their records don’t carry over with them. The group discussed the value of having every family in the community fill out the school meal application, making this a cultural norm and not a source of stigma. Jaca and others pointed out that school meal applications are also critical for other programs that support schools, such as Title 1 funding. The group agreed that school meal applications and instructions should be available at as many locations across the city as possible, including at all service providers. Kirsten Vigneault offered to bring this idea to the next Community Health meeting, which includes almost all of the social service and direct service providers in the region. Jaca and Debra Belanger then described the idea of universal school meals, where every child is able to eat a school meal without direct charge. Jaca and Beth Roy agreed that getting all schools to universal meals will likely take a large financial investment, but is a long-term goal for the region. Focusing on improving school meal applications will be very helpful in addressing both the short-term issues as well as this longer-term goal, since both direct certification and income- eligibility numbers can help a school qualify for the universal school meal programs. Attendees discussed