Appleseed’s Federal Legislation:
Lunch Shaming

In 2017, thanks to Appleseed's work, New Mexico was the first state to ban the practice of lunch shaming. This landmark piece of legislation was quickly adopted by many other states and praised as commonsense law. However, not everyone sees it that way and the fight continues over holding a child responsible for school meal debt. Our Hunger Watchdogs monitor activities of the government and organizations alerting the public and writing legal memos when necessary to prevent the practice of lunch shaming. Together with local delegates, Appleseed is working to end these unethical debt-collection methods on a federal level. In the last year, our work has been gaining support as Congress revisits the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act. Our staff has been working to ensure that lunch shaming becomes federal law—and a thing of the past.

Appleseed’s Federal Legislation:
Tribal Nutrition Improvement Act

Nationwide, one in three Native Americans lives in poverty due to low wages and unstable employment, and about three out of four live in a community that does not have a supermarket within one mile—unlike the rest of the nation, where it is about two in five. This makes it difficult for Native American communities to benefit from federal food programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and School Meals (Feeding America, 2021). Child nutrition programs should work to help sovereign Native Nations overcome barriers to ending food insecurity. Appleseed is leading the way with an innovative piece of legislation that will change the landscape of hunger plaguing Native communities. 

Our Tribal Nutrition Improvement Act will:

1. Ensure that tribal children, no matter where or with whom they live, will automatically receive free school meals.

2. Empower Native communities to operate nutrition programs.

3. Ensure higher meal reimbursement rates.

4. Track Tribal meal patterns and economic development.

Hunger & COVID-19

In the last year-and-a-half, the COVID–19 pandemic has been driving-up food insecurity among children throughout New Mexico. In a year with so many children not attending school full-time and parents still out of work, Appleseed has been helping to fight for children and their families every step of the way. Appleseed ensures the availability of school meals, reminds the public, government institutions, and our communities that we are watching a humanitarian disaster slowly unfold before our eyes—and that we have the ability to prevent and mitigate the dangers to New Mexico's children and families.

Coordinated 15 large community events that helped more than 7,932 students, 2,500 parents, and served 1,800 food boxes and 8,500 school meals

Appleseed partnered with over 60 different nonprofits, schools, and government agencies for our multi-pronged 1,2,3 Eyes On Me statewide events—and became first-in-the-nation to combine health screenings, oral and eye health services, food boxes, flu shots, mental health services, and COVID-19 vaccinations in a single location.

Spearheaded statewide effort to ensure all low-income children had access to free usda meals during the first three months of the shutdown and throughout the summer

Our advocacy team created a state-wide task force, which included school districts, state agencies, national organizations, and the Governor’s office to open drive-through meal sites in every school district in New Mexico. For example, Appleseed worked in partnership with APS to create 89 drive-through meal sites throughout Albuquerque, resulting in 4,000,000 meals in the first three months of the COVID-19 outbreak. This win resulted from a blend of local coordination, legal research and state and federal advocacy.

Awarded four districts and community programs with $30,000 in hunger grants to feed during the summer

As schools struggled to provide meals to the community, Appleseed provided hunger grants to school districts to continue their feeding programs. RFK Charter School, Family Youth Inc, Lynn Middle School, and Valley View Elementary were provided grants to provide over 10,000 summer meals and food boxes to their children and families. Family Youth Inc. used their grants to provide food and back to school supplies for their community. Rehoboth Christian School used the entirety of the grant to keep its doors open during the summer and provide meals to their community. Susan Eddy, the Food Service Director, provided 2,097 in-person meals and additional summer programming.

Hunger Watchdogs

Appleseed continues a tradition of closely monitoring our state agencies, school districts, and communities to ensure they are abiding by all hunger and poverty laws and regulations. Our rapid response team is dedicated to reviewing local policies throughout New Mexico and are quick to ensure compliance with our Breakfast After the Bell law, Elimination of Reduced-price School Meals, and Lunch Shaming laws. As hunger watchdogs, we become experts in federal laws and ensure that state agencies not only understand them, but enforce them as well. Our legislation directly helps one-third of all New Mexico children, and we are dedicated to ensuring that for years to come.

Served as a hunger thought leader in the state and nationally throughout the year fighting for New Mexico’s children and putting forth issues in every meeting and event possible

Our staff works directly with the Children’s Cabinet at the Office of the Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, Community Food Programs, Food Hunger Water and Ag Policy Council, School Nutrition Association, One Albuquerque’s Kid’s Cabinet, Santa Fe Food & Nutrition Committee, Chobani’s Hunger Summit, and USDA’s Secretary Tom Vilsack to ensure child hunger issues are always being discussed and addressed.