Going big on hunger?

 This is really weird, but for the second time in a week or so, the WV legislature, which one of my favorite delegates refers to as "the bad idea factory," did something good. I mean real good.

First a little background: at least since 2013, with the passage of the WV Feed to Achieve Act, a lot of my friends and comrades, now known as the WV Food for All Coalition, have worked on hunger and  food security issues, from school meals to SNAP benefits to responding to food needs during the pandemic.

For the last several years, some of us have urged the passage of what has been know as the Summer Feeding for All Act, which would have required school boards to come up with food plans when school is not is session, whether for summer vacations or other disasters.

It was particularly ironic in 2020 to watch the bill die in the waning days of the legislative session just as the first wave of a global pandemic hit that would result in the end of in-person classes for months...and then to watch as schools scrambled to do what they could to make sure kids didn't miss out on food while at home. 

Maybe our theory was correct.

Anyhow, a lot of us who work on these issues were pleasantly surprised to learn that House Speaker Roger Hanshaw announced the formation of a bipartisan working group "dedicated to utilizing every tool at West Virginia’s disposal to help reduce hunger throughout the state."

Here's the rest of the news release:

Delegate Larry Pack, R-Kanawha, and Delegate Chad Lovejoy, D-Cabell, will lead the bipartisan workgroup, which will focus on improving food insecurity, which Feeding America estimates affects one in seven West Virginians as well as one in five West Virginia children.

“We have plenty of evidence that shows us how deeply connected hunger is to other issues, such as overall health, mental health, academic achievement and economic prosperity,” Pack said. “We are committed to putting in the time and energy to truly understand not only what specific roadblocks are out there hurting our West Virginia families, but also what solutions we can implement in the near future.”

Pack and Lovejoy both pushed this year to establish the Summer Feeding for All initiative, and while that did not happen during the regular legislative session, Lovejoy said this new workgroup is a big step forward.

“This is an exciting announcement recognizing that food insecurity is a priority in West Virginia policymaking,” Lovejoy said. “I’m grateful to our Speaker, who has actively participated in the bipartisan House Hunger Caucus since its inception, and now organizes a formal group of committed representatives to tackle this problem head-on.”

Other members of the workgroup are Delegates:

Brent Boggs, D-Braxton      

Ed Evans, D-McDowell

Joshua Higginbotham, R-Putnam

John Paul Hott, R-Grant

Riley Keaton, R-Roane

Kayla Kessinger, R-Fayette

Danielle Walker, D-Monongalia

Evan Worrell, R-Cabell

Kayla Young, D-Kanawha

Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall

 This is a big advance and a major victory for WV's food fighters. You can bet that some of us have some ideas we can't wait to share. Meanwhile, thanks to the legislative champions, advocates and impacted people who have worked for years to raise this issue.

Hunger games in Congress

The following op-ed of mine appeared in today's Gazette-Mail. If you feel so inclined, please contact your representative and ask that they not mess with feeding kids in school.

We have a tendency in West Virginia to top the lists of bad things and bring up the rear of the lists of good things. One fortunate exception to that pattern is the area of child nutrition, in which we’ve made huge strides in recent years.

Some readers may remember the 2013 Feed to Achieve Act, which passed the Legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill was “to eventually provide free nutritious meals for all pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade school children in West Virginia.”

We’ve come a long way toward that goal since then. For the last two years, West Virginia has led the nation in school breakfast participation.

Rising to the top of that list was a huge turnaround. As MetroNews reported in February, a few years ago, only about 28 percent of students were fed school breakfasts. Now that number has increased to over 82 percent. This is a big deal since kids who are “hangry” — hungry and angry — can’t learn very well.

Part of the reason for that success was Feed to Achieve’s mandate that schools offer innovate ways of serving breakfast. But a federal policy enacted in 2010 also helped.

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows school boards to provide free meals for all students in schools with a high percentage of children in poverty. The idea is to improve nutrition, remove stigma for getting free or reduced lunches, reduce paperwork, and to improve education and reduce discipline problems.

CEP has so far been adopted by 46 of 55 counties. Of these, 19 provide free meals to all students in the county at this time, with at least one new county to step up next year. As of January 2016, 429 out of 686 schools were participating — a rate of around 62 percent that impacted nearly 146,000 students.

It’s a big deal.

The bad news is that proposed legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives could undo much of that progress. The bill in question is HB 5003, misnamed as the “Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016.” Its lead sponsor is Indiana Congressman Todd Rokita.

According to the national Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “If this bill becomes law, 7,022 schools now using community eligibility to simplify their meal programs and improve access for low-income students could have to reinstate applications and return to monitoring eligibility in the lunch line within two years. These schools serve nearly 3.4 million students. Another 11,647 schools that qualify for community eligibility but have not yet adopted it could lose eligibility.”

The bill would also increase and complicate school meal application verification requirements in ways likely to cause students to lose access to free or reduced meals.

Advocates for better child health and nutrition have also expressed concerns about the bill’s weakening of nutrition standards and its impact on participants in child care and summer feeding programs as well as the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program.

I’m hoping that our congressional delegation will stand up for West Virginia’s children and oppose these measures. We’ve come too far to turn back now.

Something that works

OK, in the grand scheme of things, improving child nutrition in public schools may not sound like a big deal. But you know what? By more than one measure, it's working. This year, in spite of the whole WV-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket thing, huge strides have been made in feeding kids. And it's something to build on in the future.

A slow theological slog

Swiss theologian Karl Barth, 1886-1968.

Finishing a large, difficult book is a kind of marathon, although generally it is one mercifully broken up over an extended period of time rather than a few hours. Last night I finally finished reading the signature work of Karl Barth, one of the 20th century's premier theologians.

The book in question was The Epistle to the Romans, first published around 1918. It was 537 dense pages of text, many of which went right over my head. I borrowed it from a friend and sometime reader of this blog back around Thanksgiving. It went into my morning pile of books that I try to turn a couple of pages of over coffee most mornings.

Barth is probably best known for his work in organizing Christian opposition to the Nazi movement in Europe,and especially its efforts to Nazify Christianity, by establishing the Confessing Church. Some if its members, such as Martin Niemoller, wound up in concentration camps. Others, like Dietrich Bonheoffer, were executed by the regime.

If I had to sum up Barth's theology, I couldn't, but maybe one could start like this: the main thing you need to know about God is that you ain't. Barth rejected liberal and rationalist theology and instead emphasized that God is absolutely unknowable by humans--except as He (Barth was pre-feminist but would probably be cool with it today) freely chose to reveal himself in the Gospel proclamation.

I think I like Barth because I do believe in the absolute distinction between God and humanity. I even believe in that on the days I doubt God. Nothing seems loopier or more self-evidently false than the assertion that humans are somehow divine. The Quakers may be right that there is "that of God" in every person. But if so, I'd say that "that" is what Bob Dylan called a "broken mirror of innocence," i.e. something that might reflect light but not originate it.

Somedays I'm orthodox in spite of myself.

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES. This story about real estate highlights our growing issues of inequality.

THANKS, GUYS. NOT. Here's a look at the fun loving guys who gave us West Virginia's 2014 chemical spill.

HOW BOUT WE FEED SOME KIDS? Here's my latest op-ed on school meals, the Feed to Achieve Act and Community Eligibility.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED