Our advocacy helps nourish our fellow Californians by generating more than $2 billion in new nutrition resources each year. In each of the past three decades, we’ve led high-impact campaigns that connect individuals and families with the food they need to thrive:
In the 1990s, we co-led the effort to create a state-funded nutrition assistance program for immigrants. Each month, the program reaches tens of thousands of Californians who are shut out of the equivalent federally funded program.
In the 2000s, we led advocacy campaigns to remove barriers that prevented nearly 2 million Californians from accessing what was then known as “food stamps.” We helped transform the program into what’s now known as CalFresh. Today, more than 4 million Californians utilize CalFresh.
In the 2010s, we led the charge to create a paperless school meal enrollment system. Today, California enrolls more than 3 million students into free and reduced-price meal programs each year. We didn’t stop there—we harnessed automatic enrollment to guarantee that all students in California’s highest poverty schools have access to free breakfast and lunch each school day.
In the 2020s, we’re deploying our advocacy skills to reduce harm in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, both of which are deepening health and food access inequities across California. The COVID-19 crisis does not need to be a hunger crisis.