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Building Hunger-Free Communities
Maryland Hunger Solutions is
privileged to be a key coordinator
and partner in the work of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Hunger-
Free Communities Program through
its collaboration with the Governor’s
Partnership to End Childhood
Hunger.
The program is designed to
advance holistic, innovative efforts to
end hunger at the community level. In
Maryland, it focuses on eight counties
(Allegany, Anne Arundel, Caroline,
Carroll, Dorchester, Frederick, Garrett,
and Montgomery) where people are at
particular risk of hunger.
The Hunger-Free Communities program
in Maryland began in March of 2011. Since
its inception, the program has yielded
participation increases in the Food
Supplement Program, School Breakfast
Program, Summer Food Service Program,
and the At-Risk Afterschool Meal
Program in the eight target counties.
Maryland Hunger Solutions has worked
on all federal nutrition programs in each
of the target counties through the grant,
generating community support for the
programs and engaging in collaborative
efforts at the federal, state and local
levels to maximize participation. Through
engagement of local community leaders,
Maryland Hunger Solutions worked with
each county to identify their specific
needs and challenges, and then develop
a plan for ending hunger that was unique
to their jurisdiction. This approach also
created a sustainable model for ending
hunger at the community level after the
Hunger-Free Communities program has
ended.
Evidence of this program’s success can
be found in each of the eight counties
in any number of ways. One of the
benefits of the Hunger-Free Communities
program was the ability to work in some
of the most rural counties in Maryland,
many of which often generated the
most innovative solutions to common
participation barriers. Garrett County
is one such example. Located in the far
western corner of Maryland’s panhandle,
nearly one in five children in Garrett
County lives in poverty, yet many families
eligible for assistance are not receiving it.
As the 2010-2011 school year was about
to end, Maryland Hunger Solutions
convened a meeting of all stakeholders
in the county, at which participants
learned that, due to deep funding cuts,
there would be no Summer Food Service
Program sites operating anywhere in
Garrett County. Over the course of just
two hours, meeting participants pulled
together three summer feeding sites with
donations of time, space and resources
from each person at the table. While it
was impossible to open as many sites as
existed during the previous summer, all
stakeholders came together to ensure
that the county’s neediest children would
be fed during the summer of 2011. This
partnership was replicated the following
year when Maryland Hunger Solutions
worked with stakeholders to start a
summer site at the Community Aquatic
Center located at Garrett College, with
the goal of reaching even more eligible
children at a centralized location during
the summer. The site operated the entire
summer and in the first three weeks,
more children were served at the one site
than had been served the entire previous
summer. By the end of summer 2012,
more than 3,000 meals were served,
reaching an average of 62 children each
day.
To read more success stories from the
Hunger-Free Communities program
in Maryland, visit Maryland Hunger
Solutions’ website and click on “Hunger-
Free Communities.”
MDHUNGERSOLUT IONS .ORG
