Approximately four million low-income children under the age of 12 experience hunger each year and an additional 9.6 million children are at risk of hunger. (Source: Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project 1995)

In 1997, nearly 7 million families with children depend on food stamps. They will lose an average of $435 due to the new welfare law's cuts. 52% of food stamp recipients are children. Two-thirds of food stamp benefit reduction will affect families with children. (Source: Children's Defense Fund 1997)

Nearly 100 million adult Americans are overweight, while simultaneously, 34.6 million people are hungry or food insecure. (Source: Vital Signs 1999)

Federal Programs to combat hunger and food insecurity reach only one third of needy older adults. (Source: American Dietetic Association 1997)

"Every day, 25% of our food supply is wasted." (Source: President Clinton, in remarks to D.C. Central Kitchen Trainees and Volunteers, Washington, D.C., Dec. 21, 1998)

Almost 100 billion pounds of safe, edible food – meat and poultry, fruit and vegetables, milk and eggs – are thrown away every year by retailers, restaurants, and farmers while twenty-five million Americans are hungry, including 12 million children. (Source: USDA 1997)

Ninety-seven percent of food stamp benefits go to households with gross incomes equal to or below the poverty line, and over 80 percent go to households with children. (Source: Food Research and Action Center 1996)

13,859,000 million children were enrolled in the food stamp program in 1995. (Source: Children's Defense Fund 1997)

In 1997, 26.1 million children participated in the National School Lunch Program and 14.6% received free or reduced meals daily. (Source: USDA 1997)

2.1 million children received meals in the summer food program in 1996. (Source: Children's Defense Fund 1995)

Sixty percent of hungry households have at least one household member employed, and almost half of the hungry households have at least one full-time employee. (Source: Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project 1995)

Almost 70 percent of households at risk of hunger have workers, and 57 percent of at risk households have at least one full-time worker. (Source: Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project 1995)

Officials in 96% of the responding U.S. cities expect requests for emergency food assistance to increase in 1999; 96% expect requests for emergency food from families with children to increase in 1999 (Source: U.S. Conference of Mayors, status report on Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities, 1998)

On average, an estimated 18 percent of the requests for emergency food assistance have gone unmet. (Source: U.S. Conference of Mayors, status report on Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities, 1992)

Seventy-five percent of 29 cities surveyed reported that there are low-income neighborhoods in which the residents do not have reasonable access to local supermarkets. (Source: U.S. Conference of Mayors, status report on Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities, 1992)

29% of U.S. children under the age of 12 – 13.6 million children – are hungry or are at risk of hunger daily. (Source: FRAC 1999)

In 1993, one in four older Americans were malnourished. (Source: survey of 750 doctors, nurses, and health care administrators who work with senior citizens, commissioned by Nutrition Screening Initiative, Milwaukee Journal, April 1993)

In 1990, six out of every ten people (62 percent) who went to Catholic Charities (the nation's largest private human service organization) needed food or shelter as compared to ten years earlier when only two out of every ten people (23 percent) sought those services. (Source: National survey conducted by Catholic Charities USA)

Undernutrition during any period during childhood can have detrimental effects on cognitive development and adult productivity. (Source: Center on Hunger, Poverty, and Nutrition, Tufts Univ. 1993)

26 million additional people could be fed, at U.S. levels of consumption, if the amount of edible food wasted in the United States each day were reduced by one-third. (Source: USDA, 1999)

In 1996, Catholic Charities food banks served 2.7 million people while soup kitchens fed over one million. (Source: Catholic Charities 1996)

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