Tusk Philanthropies' Solving Hunger Announces 2023 Anti-Hunger Campaigns Focused On Passing Universal School Meals In Four States

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Dec 05, 2022, 11:27 ET

In 7 years, Solving Hunger has won 19 campaigns in 18 states, unlocking $1.5 billion in new government funding for anti-hunger programs and providing food regularly to 12 million more people

NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tusk Philanthropies' Solving Hunger, a nonprofit dedicated to ending hunger in the United States, today announced its 2023 grant recipients. The nonprofit runs coordinated anti-hunger campaigns in cities and states to pass legislation that expands nutrition programs. For this upcoming year, Solving Hunger will provide resources and funding to four organizations focused solely on enacting political and policy changes to bring healthy school meals for all (also known as Universal Free Meals) to their communities. The four grantees include Hunger Free Vermont, North Carolina Alliance for Health, End Hunger Connecticut!, and Feeding New York State. They each will receive capacity grants for internal operations and additional financing for lobbying, communications and public relations and paid media services – all tools that anti-hunger organizations typically do not have at their disposal but are essential to running political-style campaigns to pass legislation.

"Government can't solve every problem, but it can help food get from point A to point B so people can eat – and we help our partners run targeted campaigns to make sure that happens," said Bradley Tusk, CEO and Founder of Tusk Philanthropies. "With federal free school meals, a pandemic-era program that fed all kids breakfast and lunch for years, ending earlier this year, we felt it especially important this legislative session to help states step in and fill the void in the complete absence of federal action. We know how much of a difference universal school meals makes for ensuring no one slips through the cracks – and it's why we're making it the sole focus of our grants this legislative session."

In 7 years, Tusk Philanthropies' Solving Hunger has had a 79% success rate, winning 19 of 24 campaigns in 18 states. With $4 million in support over the years, Tusk Philanthropies campaigns have unlocked $1.5 billion in new government funding for anti-hunger programs, providing food regularly to 12 million more people.

Tusk Philanthropies will fund four grantees to run campaigns in the 2023 legislative session with the following partners on the ground:

Hunger Free Vermont: Campaign to make universal school meals permanent for 82,000 K-12 public school students. Tusk partnered with Hunger Free Vermont during the past two legislative sessions and helped Vermont become the third state to pass universal school meals in 2022, which made breakfast and lunch free for all public school students for the 2022-2023 school year.
North Carolina Alliance for Health: Campaign for universal school meals, which would make breakfast and lunch permanently free to more than 1.4 million K-12 public school students.
End Hunger Connecticut!: Campaign for universal school meals, which would make breakfast and lunch permanently free to all 520,000 K-12 public school students.
Feeding New York State: Campaign for universal school meals, which would make breakfast and lunch permanently free to all 2.5 million K-12 school students (*All 1.1 million New York City school students receive free meals at school, regardless of family income).

There is growing momentum for universal school meals at the state and local level. In the last two years, California and Maine have begun implementing universal school meals. In the last election, Colorado became the latest state to adopt permanent universal school meals by a statewide ballot measure. Vermont, Massachusetts, and Nevada all passed universal school meals for the 2022-23 school year, and Pennsylvania has implemented universal breakfast for the current school year. Large school districts around the country, including New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, Dallas, Miami and Nashville, have all committed to feeding their children through legislative action.

"Through our previous campaign cycles, we know that there is broad, bipartisan support for universal school meals. But hunger in America is a policy problem, so we just need to change the policy once and for all," said Tusk Philanthropies Anti-Hunger Campaign Director Lisa Quigley. "We also know that universal school meals is an extremely effective mechanism to combat food insecurity – and improve children's academic performance, future earnings and diets. We're excited to double down this year and concentrate on grantees who are willing to take on universal school meals, with our help, and are excited about the partners we chose to do so."

About Tusk Philanthropies
Tusk Philanthropies, the family foundation of political strategist Bradley Tusk, is focused on making sure that people who are hungry have enough food to eat. Ensuring people have access to food is an immediate problem that the organization addresses every year by funding, developing, and managing legislative campaigns to expand and strengthen access to nutrition programs like Breakfast After the Bell, Universal School Meals, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). To date, Tusk Philanthropies has helped secure state and federal funding to support nutrition programs in Arizona, California, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Kentucky and Washington. To learn more, visit tuskphilanthropies.com.