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Happy AAPI Heritage Month! This month and all months, we celebrate the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to our country and to our local communities, reflecting on the ways that AAPI history, culture, and achievements have helped shape and enrich our society. We invite all to discover, explore, and support organizations and initiatives leading crucial work to elevate AAPI voices and end anti-Asian violence. Among many others, these include the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Stop AAPI Hate, and the Center for Pan Asian Community Services.
We also wish everyone and their mom, a Happy Mother's Day! We loved this article from Grist: a food justice advocate's story about her mother's influence on her work and perspective. Hnin shares, "As we continue to build the food movement we want and need, let us also draw inspiration from everyday food heroes like my mom, who forages for the bhat gua (gingko nuts) to put in the juk (congee) she cooks almost every day... If my mom, a 58-year-old immigrant, can make nothing of the significant daily effort to procure, cook, and share the foods that represent “good, clean, and fair” to her, then we had all better step up our commitment to food, culture, and justice for all."
And! Tomorrow is School Lunch Hero Day! Celebrate the people who fuel childrens' health and education! Volunteer at a school meal distribution site, donate to school nutrition programs, and reach out to thank your favorite school nutrition staff.
Tomorrow, we'll meet for our bi-weekly Team Call at 9 am PST/12 pm EST. Click this link to add the bi-weekly invitation to your calendar or join directly using this Zoom link (PW: 278840).
Tomorrow's Call Agenda:
- unBox's Policy Updates + Action Items
- BREAKING NEWS PRESENTATION: "California's P-EBT 2.0 Program." CA was one of the last states to receive approval to administer the 2nd round of P- EBT. On Wednesday, USDA finally approved CA's 20-21 SY Child Care Age P-EBT Plan, but the plan for school-age children remains pending. These delays burden millions of families; read about P-EBT 1.0's impact in this groundbreaking CAFB report. unBox presents on CA's new P-EBT 2.0 Child Care Age Plan, the causes for delays (informed by CDSS guidance to P-EBT-supporting stakeholders), and how CA's P-EBT story points to nationwide challenges in anti-hunger program roll-out.
- CEO of Hunger Free America Joel Berg's Policy Run-Down
- Advisor updates, unBox project updates, announcements
- SAVE THE DATE! At our next team call on May 21, Sienna Rohrer, CalFresh Coordinator at Feeding San Diego and former UCLA CalFresh Initiative Coordinator, is presenting to unBox! Sienna will share insights from her experiences helping both students and local residents discover, apply for, and use SNAP, and lays out policy recommendations for program changes that could better support clients’ needs!
unBox Team Spotlights:
- unBox member, data engineer for our BayAreaCommunity.org (BAC) project, and brilliant high school sophomore Deeya Viradia will present BAC at Code for San Jose's Inclusive Product Week May 19-20!
- unBox's Policy Team had posted our California Food Policy Hub live on our website! Discover local food justice organizations working across the state, read up on the CA state legislative process, and explore bills active in the state legislature this quarter!
- unBox writes for the FTS Solutions blog, reaching small and independent SNAP and WIC retailers nationwide! Explore our post on how stores can become WIC retailers.
Advocacy Spotlight - Comprehensive Plan for a Hunger Free America:
- In response to Rep. McGovern's anti-hunger call to action and ask for feedback, Hunger Free America outlined 14 actions that Congress and the Biden Administration can take to end hunger, slash poverty, fuel economic opportunity and nutrition security, and create jobs:
- Read the full list here! Among them are included:
- Include in the Infrastructure Bill funding for key food items
- Raise the minimum wage by indexing state and local wages to state and local median household incomes
- Create a plan on Hunger, Food, and Nutrition, and a White House Food Conference
- Implement a multi-stakeholder plan to help eligible Americans to simultaneously obtain vital forms of government assistance
- Accelerate SNAP and WIC online ordering and home delivery
- Boost contactless SNAP, WIC, P-EBT purchases
- Pass a Child Nutrition Re-Authorization Bill that includes universal free school meals, and boosts school breakfasts, Summer EBT, summer meals, and nutrition, and makes WIC an entitlement
- Increase funding for the USDA FNS
- Make the temporary boosts in anti-poverty funding and administrative flexibility permanent
- Improve SNAP by increasing the minimum benefit and expanding eligibility
- Increase programs that increase the fresh fruit and vegetables purchasing power of low-income Americans
- Enact the Biden American Families Plan
- Enact a government-wide “Assets Empowerment/Middle Class Wealth Generation Agenda”
- Expand AmeriCorps
Stay plugged in:
Events
Reads & Listens:
Actions
As always, we invite you to join tomorrow's Bi-weekly Friday Team Call, from 9 - 10 AM PT/ 12 - 1 PM ET. Join here:
Join via Zoom (Password: 278840)
Or call in via: +1 833 302 1536 (US, Canada, Caribbean Toll Free) Meeting ID: 957 7481 8469; Password: 278840
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In community,
The unBox Team
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