Addressing Hunger in Pennsylvania

The State Food Purchase Program (SFPP) Budget

In 2007 state budgeted $18 million for SFPP – a cut of $750,000 from the previous year. Although the Pennsylvania Association of Regional Food Banks (PARF) and the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center lobbied strongly for an increase of $4 million for FY 2008-2009 to $22 million, the amount budgeted was again $18 million – this at a time of rapidly rising food costs.

The State Food Purchase Program enables Pennsylvania's private charitable food distribution network to provide nutritionally balanced food packages to low-income families, children, seniors and others in need, hungry and threatened by hunger.

In addition to providing grants to all 67 counties for the direct purchase of quality foods and nutritional supplements for distribution to Pennsylvanians in need, this program also makes funds available to meet critical transportation and infrastructure requirements and to cover the handling charges associated with accessing federal bonus food commodities through TEFAP (The Federal Emergency Food Assistance Program). Each of these uses is important in the fight against hunger in our Commonwealth.

What you as an individual can do

Help build a hunger-free Southwestern Pennsylvania:

• Be informed.
• Voice your support of policies to end hunger.
• Sign up for the Advocates e-newsletter, which delivers action alerts(like the one at the top of this page) to those interested in staying informed about hunger-related policy and legislative issues – both nation wide and state-related. You can also choose to receive E-Alerts, delivering information about hunger in America generally and the work of America's Second Harvest.

What Smithfield church is doing

Read about our Walk-in Ministry

and visit the website of our partner,
the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank

  – through you and me!