WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, unveiled the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which provides $4.5 billion in new child nutrition program funding over ten years.
“We are poised for a truly historic moment in the Senate Agriculture Committee today with the unveiling of a bill that makes the largest investment in our child nutrition programs to date,” said Lincoln. “This proposal is a monumental step forward as we work to end childhood hunger and address the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States. It invests roughly $4.5 billion in new funding in child nutrition programs over the next ten years – more new money than we have provided for child nutrition programs since their inception.
“This legislation will also mark the first time since the inception of the National School Lunch Program that Congress has dedicated this level of resources to increasing the program’s reimbursement rate,” Lincoln continued. “It also invests heavily in new initiatives designed to automatically enroll more eligible low-income children with our National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs and includes a major expansion of afterschool feeding programs. The legislation aims to ensure that all children eligible for nutrition programs are actually participating, improve the quality of meal benefits, and modernize and improve the integrity of the programs. The legislation is fully paid for.”
