Hunger Impact Partners

During 2022, Hunger Impact Partners focused on addressing the most challenging time schools and nutrition professionals had faced in the past three years. There were staffing challenges, inflation, decreased participation rates, unpaid meal debt, changing regulations and ongoing supply chain issues. Our efforts and grant funding were directed to support school districts and community-based organizations who needed support to address these challenges. We funded over 25 schools and 18 community-based non-profits that served low-income communities with large bipoc populations. In addition, we funded the student wellness coordinator position at minneapolis public schools dedicated to helping students with social engagement, academic achievement, and healthy eating. With our Partners, we led a special initiative to inform families they could access federal funds through the child tax credit (ctc) in october. Families with no income or low income could get at least 3,000 per child with the child tax credit, plus 1,400 with the third stimulus payment - even if they have never filed taxes before and if they had not filed taxes in 2022. It was estimated that more than 33,000 children in Minnesota could miss out on this money if their parent/guardian had not filed. We marketed this program to families using the free meals for kids mobile app and implemented an email outreach campaign to over 10,000 statewide school contacts. The Hunger Impact Partners ctc effort was measured through a dedicated link provide by code for american resulting over one thousand accepted applications and generated more than 2 million in stimulus payments. The free meals for kids mobile app had an increase in downloads reaching 32,868 active users with 10,322 of those being new users. Total visits reached 34,017 and page views reached 37,690. The app continues to be a leading resource for families needing food help and meal access information along with support opportunities available to low-income families.