Take Action
Act on State Level: Fill the Plate with Your Message to Protect and Strengthen State Nutrition Programs!
Now is the time for legislators to hear from you about the importance of protecting and strengthening key nutrition programs in our state budget. Please print out this “Placemat” template. The template lists our priorities in Olympia and gives you the space you need to write a personalized message.
Partner Programs: Please print out at least 10 copies of this template and distribute it to your clients, volunteers and staff. (If printing color copies is too expensive, feel free to print copies in black and white.) Collect their completed messages and either send them to your legislators or return them to Christina at Northwest Harvest by Tuesday, May 27 so that we can deliver them to your legislators. If you want us to send you hard copies of the template to distribute, please email partners@northwestharvest.org no later than this Thursday, May 16.
Tip for our Partners for Sharing with Your Network:
Set up a table at the end of your grocery line on your next distribution day. Have a volunteer available with a stack of our templates and a printout of this advocacy update so they can talk with customers about the importance of filling out one of these templates. Make sure that all requested information about an address and a personal message—even a short one—is completed on the template. If the customer needs an address, you can substitute the address of your program.
Act on Federal Level: Tell our Senators “No Farm Bill is Better than Living with a Bad Farm Bill!”
We have a real shot at stopping a Farm Bill that proposes deep cuts to SNAP in the Senate, if our Senators understand that we don’t need to cut SNAP to reduce our deficit. Cutting SNAP will actually do more harm, reducing economic activity as families won’t have the assistance they need to purchase food and may have increased health problems from hunger and malnutrition that act as barriers to work and education. In other words, our Senators need you to help them understand that no Farm Bill is better than living with the devastating consequences of a bad Farm Bill.
Please call Senators Cantwell and Murray TODAY and ask them to do the following:
- Vote YES on the Gillibrand amendment to restore the $4.1 billion cut from SNAP in the 2013 Senate Agriculture Committee Farm Bill.
- Vote NO to reject any amendments that further cut SNAP.
- Vote NO on a final Farm Bill that cuts SNAP because no Farm Bill is better than living with the devastating consequences of a bad Farm Bill.
In the messages you leave for our Senators, be sure to include a story that puts a human face on the issue. Tell them a story about a client or someone you know who is on SNAP and what the loss of $90 per month or the complete elimination of their benefits would mean to them and their families.
Tip for Our Partners for Sharing with Your Networks: We’ve updated our Farm Bill infographic from last year with current information about the impact of this year’s proposed cuts to SNAP in the Farm Bill. Please print out copies of our infographic and post it where it is visible to clients in your grocery line. Point it out to them and talk about what the impact of these cuts may mean to them. Encourage them to share their stories with their elected officials using the information in this alert.
Contact your legislators:
Find your Representative here: www.house.gov
Contact Senator Patty Murray: murray.senate.gov
Contact Senator Mari a Cantwell: cantwell.senate.gov
For more information, including how to get involved with Northwest Harvest’s advocacy work, please contact Christina Wong, Public Policy Manager, at 206.923.7465 or christinaw@northwestharvest.org. You can also sign up to receive email alerts below.
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