Dear Friends,

We hope you all are having a healthy start to the new year. At the Coalition, we are excited to kick-off 2022 and continue working alongside each of you in our fight to end hunger.

In 2021, we completed a strategic plan, and we are eager to begin to implement it. As a first step, we are making some changes to our organizational structure. Tanya Sen, formerly our Community Nutrition Program Manager, has stepped into the new role of Director of Programs, overseeing our community nutrition programs, VIP program and SNAP Hotline. And just this past Monday, we welcomed Jalexa Marmolejos to our team, in the role of SNAP Outreach and Hotline Counselor. This is a brand new position that will help us expand our outreach in order to increase SNAP enrollment and help even more people navigate the SNAP application process. Please join us in congratulating both Tanya and Jalexa on their new roles!

Thank you to those who participated and contributed to our strategic planning process! We are looking forward to sharing our strategic plan with you in the weeks and months to come.

Food Pantry & Soup Kitchens

To All Food Pantry and Soup Kitchen Leaders: Our next VIP (Victory in Partnership) Meeting will take place next Thursday, January 20th from 10:30am-12noon on Zoom. It will be the Race Against Hunger 2022 Kick-Off! Join us to hear the latest about this year's event and fundraising pages. Please RSVP to Tanya at tsen@hungercoalition.org to receive the link to the meeting.

The final Food Rescue Numbers are in! Thank you to our amazing team for their time and effort all year long to help us end hunger in the Greater Philadelphia area. Because of them, we were able to coordinate the distribution of 17,100 lbs of food and water to 690 households and 1,975 individuals in December. This brings our total distribution for 2021 to 165,690 lbs of food and water distributed to 7,864 households and 23,025 individuals. To add your food pantry to the VIP Food Rescue waiting list, contact Derek Felton at [email protected].

Policy and Advocacy

We have several important SNAP updates to share:

1. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved Pennsylvania’s request to issue SNAP Emergency Allotments (EAs) in January. As a reminder, EAs are extra SNAP payments issued in the second half of the month. For more information, including payment dates, please see our EA flyer for January.
2. The interview waiver will end January 31. When applying for SNAP, applicants must complete an interview by phone or in person at the County Assistance Office (CAO) to get their benefits. This application interview has been waived due to COVID-19, however this will end January 31. Starting February 1, all SNAP applicants will need to complete an interview. CAO staff cold call applicants to complete the interview by phone when they receive the application. All SNAP applicants should be on the lookout for this call, and pick up if the caller ID says “COPA” for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
3. The waiver allowing SNAP recipients to keep their benefits, even if they have not returned their 6-month paperwork (called semi-annual reports or SARs) has been extended through March 31. The Department of Human Services (DHS) will continue to send SARs in order to try and keep cases as up-to-date as possible. Clients should complete their SAR and return it if possible, but if they are unable to, their benefits will not be cut off.

SNAP Hotline

Our Coalition Against Hunger SNAP Hotline team is here to help! Whether it’s navigating the SNAP application process or providing case management, our SNAP Hotline team is available to help Monday – Thursday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and on Friday from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. Give our SNAP Hotline team a call at 215-430-0556.

And if you are looking to visit the County Assistance Offices (CAO), they are open for in-person assistance. You can visit their offices or contact their Customer Service Center at 215-560-7226 (Philadelphia) or 877-395-8930 (statewide). For phone numbers and addresses of all Philadelphia County Assistance offices, please use this link.