Dear Friends,

Thank you to everyone who helped us develop our strategic plan, including our Coalition team members, Board of Directors, dedicated volunteers, anti-hunger partners, SNAP clients and community members. We are excited and proud to share it with you. For over 26 years, we’ve worked to build a community where all people have the food they need to live healthy lives, and while we are committed to continuing this work, we are also committed to doing more. 

Our new strategic goals will push us to dig deeper as we work to:

• Increase access to SNAP benefits for more people from historically marginalized groups
• Strengthen food networks
• Advance food secure policies
• Address root causes of food insecurity
• Create spaces for innovation

Read our strategic plan to learn more about what we hope to accomplish, and please consider making a donation to help us achieve our strategic goals and create a more food secure Greater Philadelphia region.

Policy and Advocacy

Summer Meals: The summer meals program has officially begun! This summer, kids and teens 18 and under can once again access free meals at many meal sites throughout the five-county region with no ID, registration, or proof of income required. To help families find summer meal sites, we will once again be hosting our Summer Meals Map at www.phillysummermeals.org and our Summer Meals Hotline at 215-770-4659. To find a site, call our hotline Monday-Thursday 9am-5pm and Friday 9am-4pm, or visit our mobile friendly map any time.

While the Summer Meals Program provides important nutrition to kids, strong promotion of the program by organizations and community members is needed to ensure that kids and their families know how to get connected to this resource. To help you all promote the summer meals program to your community, we are happy to share our 2022 Summer Meals Toolkit. In this toolkit, you can find everything that you need to promote the Summer Meals Program including flyers, social media graphics, and social media posts. Please note that the toolkit and the resources it promotes are applicable to Philadelphia, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware County. We encourage you to share this resource widely!

White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health: As we’ve previously reported, the White House will be hosting a conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in September, with the goal of ending hunger and increasing healthy eating and physical activity by 2030. The White House is currently in the process of soliciting community input to inform a national strategy that will be announced at the conference in September. We encourage all community members, community leaders, anti-hunger advocates, and individuals with lived experience to submit ideas and participate in this historic process. To learn more about the conference and submit your ideas for the national strategy, visit the White House Conference Website. Thank you for your participation!

SNAP Hotline In Action

This week, one of our Hotline Counselors worked with a client who called for assistance with her SNAP benefits. This client had called a few weeks earlier, but was dealing with some health issues, as well as the loss of a loved one. The client was unsure why her benefits were cut, as she had never received any notice saying that they would be. It turned out that the client was due for a Semi-Annual Renewal, which is also known as a SAR. Our Hotline Counselor assisted her with a new application and her benefits were approved the very next day! This client expressed her gratitude for our assistance during such a difficult time. 

At the Coalition Against Hunger, our SNAP Hotline team is here to help make the application or renewal process easy and take away any stress you have about it. Our SNAP Hotline team is available to help Monday – Thursday from 9:00am 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.

Food Pantry & Soup Kitchens

If you are a food pantry or soup kitchen leader, please take a moment to fill-out the Coalition Against Hunger’s 2022-23 Food Pantry and Soup Kitchen Survey, and update us on your program and program needs.

The Coalition will use the information you provide to:

• Raise public awareness about how food pantries and soup kitchens fight hunger in our community
• Tell legislators why it's important to support programs that keep people from going hungry
• Update your program's information and hours in our database for more accurate referrals
• Talk about our work with donors and funders. 

If you would prefer to have someone call you and complete the survey over the phone, please reach out to our summer Fox Fellow intern, Dangela Fonseca at [email protected] or leave a message at 215-430-0555, ext. 1101 to arrange a time that works for you.  

Thank you in advance for adding your voice and taking part in this collaborative effort!

Join Our Team

We’re looking for an Operations Manager to lead our move to a new database, handle our accounting functions, and manage our daily operations as we implement our new Strategic Plan. Know anyone who would be a good fit? See our job listing to learn more, share our job posting with others, and apply today to join our team of hunger fighters!