2009-2010
2010-2011
School Year
2011-2012
3,404
8,959
11,433
Afterschool Meal Program -
Total Average Daily Participation
11
program operations in key counties
and suggesting improvements,
meeting with state and local officials,
ensuring that the Department of
Human Resources’ website provides
correct eligibility information, co-
producing fliers to promote allowable
deductions for eligibility determination,
and helping the agency reduce error
rates and improve staff training. In
addition, Maryland Hunger Solutions
successfully advocated for the
Department of Human Resources
to implement telephone interviews,
expanded categorical eligibility that
allows FSP to reach more needy people
with less paperwork, easing red tape
by reopening applications when cases
were closed for non-eligibility reasons,
document imaging, and automatic
replacement of FSP benefits after
disasters including Superstorm Sandy.
•
Implementing the new Afterschool
Meal Program at an extremely high
rate.
Maryland Hunger Solutions
conducted extensive outreach
and provided training to increase
participation; held Afterschool Meal
Program open houses in conjunction
with other members of the Governor’s
Partnership to End Childhood Hunger;
and prepared, updated and distributed
an afterschool meals toolkit,
Your
Guide to the Afterschool Meal Program
,
designed to help care providers start
and maintain successful programs.
Maryland Hunger Solutions advocated
for more afterschool programs to be
approved to provide nutritious meals
to children through this program, and
worked with the Maryland Department
of Mental Hygiene and the Maryland
State Department of Education to
remove other barriers, as well (see
page 14).
•
Expanding enrollment in WIC
by partnering with the Maryland
Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene (DHMH) to help it adopt one-
year WIC certification for children
to maximize services and minimize
paperwork. Prior to this change,
children had to be recertified for
program eligibility every six months,
imposing a significant burden on many
families — one reason why an estimated
30,000 low-income eligible children
have not been receiving WIC services.
In conjunction with DHMH, Maryland
Hunger Solutions is making an effort
to reduce this number and reach more
families by conducting outreach and
promoting the one year eligibility
option. Maryland Hunger Solutions also
advocates to protect WIC at the federal
level.
MDHUNGERSOLUT IONS .ORG
