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| Wilson Work Results in Continued Funding for Low-Income Federal Food Program |
May 08, 2006 |
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16,500 Seniors and Pregnant Women Rely on Program
Albuquerque, NM - Congresswoman Heather Wilson today joined with New Mexicans to celebrate continued federal funding for a successful food program for low-income New Mexicans, including seniors, women, and children. Wilson led the effort in Congress to reinstate funding. Today, she announced that the 2007 Agricultural Appropriations bill includes $118.3 million for the program. That’s $11 million above last year’s funding level.
The President’s 2007 budget proposed eliminating funding for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which provides nearly $1 million to New Mexico each year. The funding provides nutritional food packets to 16,500 low-income seniors, women, and children.
Vicki Metheny, program supervisor for Economic Council Helping Others (ECHO), a nonprofit organization that runs the Commodity Supplemental Food Program in New Mexico, says this is great news.
“This is an important first step,” Metheny was quoted as saying in Saturday’s Albuquerque Journal. “Congresswoman Wilson stepping out as a Republican to reinstate this funding was really important.”
“I am happy that this program will be able to continue to help feed more than 16,000 New Mexicans,” Wilson said Friday. “This program reached people who are unlikely to use food stamps, in particular the elderly.”
If the budget proposal had remained unchanged, New Mexicans would have been cut-off from the program beginning this October, when the federal government’s new fiscal year kicks in.
Wilson has begun a push in Congress to restore funding for the program.
“We applaud Congresswoman Wilson for being the first Representative in the nation to make a direct appeal to the House Budget Committee to restore the funding for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program in the FY ’07 Budget,” says Sarah Kaynor, the Executive Director of ECHO, Inc,
New Mexico receives $986,686 to administer this federal program, providing assistance to 16,418 people. Nationally, more than 512,000 people each month participated in the program in 2005, including more than 459,000 elderly people and more than 52,000 women, infants, and children.
“By taking such a leading position, Congresswoman Wilson is fighting for the most needy and vulnerable among us – seniors, young children and moms. She is to be commended for having the courage to take this issue head on and in such a public way,” concluded Echo Inc.’s Kaynor.
“Many elderly residents and low-income families in New Mexico depend on this program to provide food to meet basic nutritional needs,” says Wilson. “If you sit here in this warehouse for just a few minutes, you’ll see seniors and families coming by to get their groceries to feed their families. The program works and people depend on it.”
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