Official Site of The State of New Jersey

June 2024

This year is a significant one in terms of efforts to ensure food security for everyone in New Jersey and the nation. This year marks:

• the 50^th anniversary of the federal WIC Program, which currently provides nutritious foods to nearly half of all infants born in the United States along with nutrition education (including nursing promotion and support) and referrals to health and other social services, and
  
  
• the launch of Summer EBT (also referred to as SUN Bucks outside of NJ), a new and permanent nutrition program intended to reduce food insecurity for children during the summer break. New Jersey is one of 37 states, along with the District of Columbia, all five U.S. territories and two Tribes that have committed to bringing Summer EBT benefits to children to help replace the school meals that families count on during the school year. New Jersey will send families $120 per eligible child on an Electronic Benefit Transfer card to buy healthier foods like fruits, vegetables, meats and other protein sources, whole grains, and dairy at authorized stores and farmers’ markets. Although summer is in full swing, New Jersey parents and guardians can and should, still contact their child’s school to complete or update the safe and secure school meal application form to determine if their child is eligible. Get details on NJ Summer EBT.
  
  According to the Food Research & Action Center, Summer EBT will bridge the gap and help stabilize summertime household food budgets for nearly 21.3 million children nationwide, including more than 500,000 of New Jersey’s children.

With this in mind, three members of the NJ Office of the Food Security Advocate (OFSA) team traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the 2024 National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference. Now back and unpacked, Rosemarie Loughlin, OFSA Program Coordinator, Dr. Jenny Schrum, OFSA Research and Evaluation Strategy Manager, and Jemmell’z Washington-Rock, OFSA Program Manager have compiled their list of top moments from the convening.

Top 5 moments from the 2024 National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference:

• Celebrating NJ’s Summer EBT efforts by participating in a panel, “Unlocking the Full Potential of Summer EBT: Supporting Implementation and Expanding Access.”  We learned that other states implementing the program face similar challenges on outreach and enrollment. Many states use approachable and culturally diverse outreach strategies to connect with eligible children and families. Panelists:
  
  Jessica Deitrich (she/her/hers) – Hunger Free Oklahoma
  Itzúl Gutiérrez – California Association of Food Banks
  Matt Stienstra (he/him/his) – Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin
  Jenny Schrum, PhD, MSW, MPH (she/her/hers) – NJ Office of the Food Security Advocate
  Kelsey Boone, MPP (she/her/hers) – Food Research & Action Center
  
  
• Learning that current concepts of medically tailored meal emerged from 1980s-era food security efforts that focused on providing nutrition to individuals living with HIV. Will Thomas of Conduit Government Relations shared that history moment with a full room during the LGBTQIA2S+ Food Insecurity, Outreach, and Advocacy panel conversation that also featured:
  

  Houa Xiong, Gay, Asian, Lived/Living Experience, Advocacy, Non-Profit (he/him/his) – Hunger Free Oklahoma
  Lisa M. O'Brien (she/her/hers) – MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and
  Fleurian Filkins (they/them/theirs) – Feeding America National Organization

• The presentation that offered an understanding of Kosher and Halal Food Equity within USDA Programs dietary requirements with education on the communities they support, training schools on how to meet student’s religious dietary and expanding outreach and technical assistance for kosher and halal meat processors, and the need of equity at USDA. Panelists:
  

  Dickran Jebejian – USDA Center for Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, New York
  Ammar Ahmed – USDA
  Ben Marcus – USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, Virginia
  Alex Cordova – USDA

• The Feeding Hope: Creating Protective Factors to Support Food Security and Mental Health session that underscored how the signs and symptoms of food insecurity or “Food and Mood” are often a natural and necessary adaptive response to stress and trauma. Signs can include trouble concentrating, hyperactivity, trouble socially and academic decline. Often a side effect of hunger can cause a boost of cortisol which is the body’s natural fight or flight response.  The fight or flight response in a child can result in hyperactivity and a child experiencing hunger may have negative behavior in school. Hunger can cause issues with mental health and wellness on multiple levels. Session panelists:

  Madeline Mortisch, MS, RDN – Alliance for a Healthier Generation
  Malissa G. Martin, BA, Same Houston State University, Executive Education, Kellogg School of Business, Northwestern University, New York University, SparkWheel
  Brittny L. Leowtewa, Zuni Youth Enrichment Project

• Meeting colleagues engaged in housing services and connecting the intersection of housing and food security. The two social issues can have a significant impact on the other, so it is important to bridge that gap at conferences regarding policy change. This included a lunch panel with housing content. The speakers for this plenary session: 
  
  Christine Going, EdD, MPA, RD, FACHE, Senior Advisor, Food Security Office at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
  Dr. Ruth Jones Nichols, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
  USDA Deputy Under Secretary Stacy Dean

Rose, Dr. Jenny and Jemmell’z also recorded a series of interviews and conversations across the three-day event. Watch the videos here.

Plus: New Logo Celebrates the Power and Resilience of Communities, and the Spirit of Multi-Sector Collaboration in New Jersey

May 2024

The NJ Office of the Food Security Advocate (OFSA) is rooted in the ways we value community, and the visionary charge and mission of our office. Our new logo and website, www.nj.gov/foodsecurity, reflect the intentionality with which we approach our work.

About the OFSA website: The website was developed with residents and neighbors, including youth, students, working families, and older adults, plus communities, researchers, grant makers and decision-makers all in mind. It serves as a convenient place to: 

• Browse food security-related public data sources and funding opportunities, 
• Follow original research coming from OFSA and its partners and leverage findings to inform local efforts and make the case for support, 
• Reference the definition of food security and framework OFSA has adopted as a rallying point for our state, 
• Navigate available emergency resources for New Jerseyans to get help with food for themselves or their families.

About OFSA’s new logo: The concentric circles represent the energy and necessity of partnership and inclusion, the ongoing nature of collaboration and the broader, more comprehensive dimensions of food security that OFSA and a growing number of community organizations and coalitions across the state, the nation and in the international community are embracing.

Like the six dimensions of food security, the colors emphasize that everyone has a part and a place in the food security conversation, even if they don’t understand their role yet. Together, we have:  

• A warm brown, to honor the resourcefulness and resiliency of every New Jerseyan and uphold everyone’s dignity and agency. People are so much more than their past or present predicaments. 
• Green, to celebrate NJ’s farmers, growers and food producers, and remember the sustainability of our food is intertwined with the environment. 
• The official shades of blue associated with State of NJ government entities as a throughline to our peer agencies, departments and offices, and a callback to OFSA’s placement in the highest level of state government, the Governor’s Office. 
• Yellow, for the optimism and opportunities to build and redesign systems and policies alongside residents so our current and future generations have what they need to thrive each day.  

The silhouette of our great state is at the center of the circles, with the name of our office emerging from it. This speaks to our relentless pursuit of opportunities for informed innovation, such as reimagining what farm (and fishing net) to fork looks like in New Jersey, and bridging conversations across the food system, across industries and across state and local agencies so every resident personally feels, understands and determines their connection to our beloved nickname, the Garden State.

Together, the circles are opening a path to an equitable future where food security is a reality for every individual, every family, every household, every community, municipality, borough, township, county, state and nation, regardless of their income level, zip code, age, ethnicity, abilities, educational background or employment status.

This equitable future is also where… 

…There is no stigma around accessing support for basic needs, such as transportation or utilities assistance, and 

…Communities have greater capacity to build resiliency, reclaim their agency in advocating for themselves and their neighborhoods, promote positive childhood experiences and ultimately, heal themselves. 

December 2023

Having demonstrated a commitment to going above and “beyond food,” like-minded pantry leaders whose teams also help neighbors access clothing programs, legal services and job training programs, and whose facilities also double as ESL classrooms and health screening sites, met in Trenton in December 2023 to launch a series of interactive peer learning days with the More Than Food: NJ Community Food Hub Capacity Project. 

Thirteen community-based, anti-hunger organizations that have agreed to participate in this project, some of the state-designated food banks, and the New Jersey Office of the Food Security Advocate (OFSA) team explored an initial analysis of existing opportunities within NJ’s food pantry and food bank landscape conducted by More Than Food Consulting (MTFC). Recognized as national experts on charitable food and emergency feeding approaches, the MTFC team of principal Katie S. Martin, Ph.D. and Malarie McGalliard will provide individualized technical assistance to each pantry to build their capacity for enhancing their operations in three particular areas: a welcoming culture, healthy choice and community connections – all with neighbors’ input guiding their work. By the end of this project, the state will have established a baseline that can move this collective work forward so every current and future New Jerseyan is food secure everyday, regardless of their income, age, educational attainment or neighborhood.

November 2023

It’s affirming to know that student success officers, campus pantry directors, Deans, Provosts and colleagues at community colleges, four-year universities and technical programs are having conversations that parallel those that best-in-class anti-hunger organizations are having about food security work and basic needs supports. Jemmell’z Washington-Rock, OFSA Program Manager, participated in the Basic Needs in Higher Education conference that focused on older students, parenting learners, low-income students, Pell grant recipients and others, with a keynote by Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab, Senior Fellow at Education Northwest. 
 
The day included breakouts and share outs of innovations that campuses have piloted such as meal scholarship/voucher initiatives and messaging/faculty engagement campaigns. Also, the NJ Office of the Secretary of Higher Education facilitated conversations and sought these committed administrators’ input about the tools, funding and information they still need to help students enroll in SNAP, find safe, stable, humane housing in a crisis or even afford their textbooks and receive them in a timely manner. 

According to the Hunger Free campus report of 8600 NJ students that was presented at the convening, 44% of first-generation students self-identified as food insecure. Also, genderqueer students, those from other historically marginalized backgrounds and non-traditional students face higher levels of food insecurity. 

Ultimately, it’s going to take all of us to link scholars to the resources they’re telling us they need to change the trajectory of their lives and communities by completing their educational goals. 

Visit the OSHE website and the Basic Needs.gov site. 

October 2023

"Historically, in child welfare circles, all too often, allegations of ‘neglect’ are a coded way of saying that a family is dealing with the effects of poverty. The issue isn't that a parent is withholding some physical or emotional need from their child, but that the family has an unmet material need resulting from having little to no income.  
 
The intention of child welfare is to uplift the child, youth, and the entire family. In New Jersey, we're looking for ways to do that in a healing-centered, trauma-informed way." 

-- Excerpted from the 2023 The Intersection of Race, Poverty & Neglect in Child Welfare conference program 
 
During the 2023 Intersection of Race, Poverty & Neglect in Child Welfare conference presented by the New Jersey Taskforce on Child Abuse and Neglect and the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, OFSA and The Franklin Food Bank partnered in discussing how holistic food security work can be an entry point to serving families’ basic needs and possibly helping them avoid system involvement.  
 
Derek Smith, Executive Director of the Franklin Food Bank and Dr. Jenny Schrum, OFSA Research and Evaluation Strategy Manager, held one-on-one “connecting conversations” with social workers, family advocates and representatives from youth-serving organizations and other service providers who attended the conference. They also shared forward-thinking language regarding food security and how food pantries like the Franklin Food Bank are operationalizing their “beyond food” efforts and building multi-sector partnerships to contribute to this broader, shared work of helping communities heal themselves.  
 
View an interview here.