Hunger Free Vermont Inc

“The executive director, operations director, board chair, and the board treasurer review the 990 before it is filed.”

“The board and staff discuss the conflict of interest policy and review any scenario which potentially causes a conflict of interest for staff or board.”

“The board of directors conducts an annual evaluation of the executive director and determines if an increase in compensation is warranted.”

“Documents are available upon request from the general public.”

“Mobilizing to end hunger: raising funds to support essential food security work by vermont abenaki bands and the vermont releaf collective: in 2020, hunger free vermont began building relationships with the leaders of the four state- recognized abenaki bands in vermont, with the goal of applying the principles of community-centric fundraising in service of assisting under-resourced nonprofits led by and serving groups most affected by hunger and its root causes in vermont to carry out their own food security priorities, and to partner with hunger free vermont in outreach and advocacy projects when we share mutual interests and priorities. In 2024 we continued our partnership with the vermont releaf collective (now called liberation ecosystem) whose mission is to cultivate connection, share resources, and amplify the voices of people of color in vermont within the focus areas of land, environment, agriculture, and foodways. Early in 2024, hunger free vermont wrote a new grant for liberation ecosystem that yielded 75k of unrestricted support. Between 2020 and 2024, hunger free vermont's development team has devoted over 400 hours of working time assisting with new grant opportunities, as well as writing reports to existing funders to maintain strong relationships, and has helped to raise over 450k for these partners. Hunger free vermont raises awareness about hunger and its solutions and supports communities and local leaders in taking action to end hunger through community engagement initiatives, including through the hunger councils of vermont. The 10 hunger councils are made up of over 1,000 local leaders who are committed to learning about hunger and working to address hunger in their communities and the state by coordinating efforts and sharing information. The hunger councils also respond to community needs and are a forum for highlighting and addressing emerging challenges in communities. The hunger councils became critical regional forums for planning emergency response to the covid-19 pandemic. The people of vermont have experienced multiple disasters in the past four years, from a pandemic to three flooding emergencies in the past sixteen months. Each of these disasters has dramatically affected people's ability to access food in both the immediate and long terms. Since the early months of the covid-19 pandemic, when it became clear both that a hunger crisis was rapidly unfolding, and that the state of vermont's emergency response protocols were not designed to adequately address food access, hunger free vermont has been working with other nonprofits that support food and farm security in vermont to effectively integrate food security and food access into state emergency and natural disaster response at the local, county, regional, and state levels. In the summer of 2024, vermont communities were again hit with devastating floods that required federal, state, and community-level responses. As was the case during the covid-19 emergency, hunger free vermont's 10 regional hunger councils again helped to identify community food needs, located and coordinated volunteers for food distribution efforts, and shared local needs with state and federal authorities. The vermont food security roadmap to 2035 is a groundbreaking initiative in which hunger free vermont is playing a leading role. Over the last two years, this project engaged hundreds of community members and experts from diverse fields to provide input on what is already working effectively to systemically reduce hunger in our state and what is still needed to achieve permanent food security for all. Hunger free vermont served on the steering committee that led the roadmap creation process, and synthesized all of the community input to write the final version. The outcome is a visionary 10- year plan to establish enduring food security for all residents of vermont, coupled with the development of climate-resilient farms and communities. Vermont's new food security road”

“Food security initiatives: hunger free vermont improves access to and participation in 3squaresvt (known nationally as snap) which is one of the most reliable, consistent, and dignified means to prevent hunger in the us. Snap provides funds eligible low-income households can use to buy food to prepare at home. Hunger free vermont works with state and community partners in every vermont county to increase awareness of the program, remove barriers to participation, and train hundreds of service providers who do application assistance to ensure all those who are eligible are able to participate. Since hunger free vermont began working on improving access, participation in 3squaresvt has increased by more than 80%. Our state is now nationally recognized for connecting those at the lowest income levels to snap. Our food security initiatives team also works to expand 3squaresvt use at farmers markets, raises public awareness about the value of 3squaresvt, and engages public support for protecting this biggest food safety net from harmful federal administrative changes and cuts. 2024 was a challenging year for 3squaresvt participants, continuing to navigate the repercussions of the end of pandemic-era program flexibilities and of increased benefit amounts. Vermont and the country also continued to experience unprecedented levels of hunger. We continued to expand both our training offerings for application assistors, and the kinds of translated materials we provide to make sure that vermont's refugee communities know how to access this critical nutrition program, including experimenting with short outreach videos in partnership with vermont's language justice project.”

“Ending childhood hunger: because good nutrition is especially crucial while a young child's brain is developing, hunger free vermont is helping child care providers build nutrition into the core of their programs. We conduct free training for directors and workers representing childcare centers and homes from around the state on how to incorporate better nutrition and more physical activity into their programs. We train early childhood educators about how to identify food insecurities in children and how to talk to families about food access resources by connecting folks to snap and wic. Hunger free vermont also serves as the voice for nutritious meals in childcare in coalitions advocating for improving and expanding early childhood education and childcare capacity in vermont. Since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, we have also helped connect childcare providers to schools as a new source of healthy meals. In 2024 hunger free vermont served as the backbone organization to co-create a strategic plan for what it would take to permanently end childhood hunger in vermont. When complete, the full creating a food secure future for vermont children will include the mix of community-based projects, administrative changes to existing programs, and new policy solutions that we know will be required to fully confront this complex problem-along with a plan for building the broad coalition of families, nonprofits, businesses, and state agencies required to achieve it. Hunger free vermont is vermont's principal anti-hunger authority and leading food security policy advocate. Hunger free vermont's advocacy has led to, among other things, vermont becoming the first state in the country to eliminate reduced-price school meals, becoming the 6th state in the country to enact permanent universal school meals, quadrupling funding for our state's farm to school and early childhood grant program, and securing state funding to incentivize local food purchasing by vermont schools.”

“School age initiatives: hunger and food insecurity affect many vermont families whose household income makes them ineligible for free school meals, and, because of the stigma they face, many students will not use their school meal program even when they are eligible. In addition, when all students participate, school meal programs are more financially sustainable, can afford to purchase more local food, and can serve higher quality meals. Hunger free vermont has therefore been committed to making school meals a universal and fundamental part of public education at all vermont schools for many years, both by advocating for changes in federal law and by leading a coalition that introduced the first state-level bill for universal school meals in january 2020. Through a robust, community driven effort, we succeeded in having the state legislature pass a one-year state-funded universal school meals program in june of 2022, and in june of 2023 that program was enacted permanently, making vermont the 6th state in the country to provide universal school breakfast and lunch as an essential component of an equitable education for every public school student in vermont, as well as for students at independent schools that opt in to the program. We can now declare success for hunger free vermont's state universal school meals campaign, although we continue to support the national movement to enact universal school meals at the federal level. In the 2023-2024 school year student participation in school breakfast increased 40%, and school lunch participation increased 29% - all while costing 6.5 million (17%) less than what was originally appropriated. During its implementation across the state, 10,000 more students were accurately identified as low-income (a 35% increase), bringing even more federal and state education funding to school districts. Even better, some 2024 changes in the federal rules for afterschool and summer meal programs coupled with new opportunities created by the passage of vermont's universal school meals act have newly made twice as many vermont towns as before eligible to provide free meals at their afterschool and summer programming, dramatically amplifying the impact we are making on ending childhood hunger in our state. Hunger free vermont also provides free, customized coaching and training for schools, towns, and community organizations in establishing, and expanding participation in, all of the federal child nutrition programs they are eligible to operate. These include school breakfast, school lunch, afterschool meals and snacks, and summer meals. These child nutrition programs provide a reliable source of nutrition for school age children, and also reduce family hunger by reducing the amount of money low-income families must spend to provide food for their children. 2023 saw the passage of act 64, vermont's permanent state-subsidized universal school meals program covering all public schools and independent schools that opt in. The calendar year 2024 crossed the first three school years when all public schools in vermont were providing universal school meals. Hunger free vermont's child nutrition initiatives team provided special technical assistance and materials to support schools in communicating this historic change to families, and tracked significant increases in student participation and local food purchasing by schools. Summer meals expansion: because summer is a particularly vulnerable time for food insecure children and families, and because summer meal programs reach only a fraction of all low-income children who need them, hunger free vermont devotes considerable staff time and resources to expanding the number of children who have access to a summer meal site for the full ten weeks of summer vacation each year. We do this through direct technical assistance, community organizing through our hunger councils, and a concerted public outreach and advertising campaign. In the summer of 2024 more than”