Industry sign banking iowa claim mobile
Panem this morning we'll be focusing on the economics of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program better known as now looking at our communities we are going to be addressing and looking along with our wonderful moderator Michelle book who is the CEO of the Food Bank of Iowa with this panel we're going to be looking at how our communities are directly affected both by recipients of SNAP benefits but also community members at large to give you a little bit of background on the food bank of Iowa where Michele comes from it's a non-profit private organization committed to its mission of providing food to the Iowa Iowa children's families and seniors to lead full and active lives last year the Food Bank of Iowa distributed over more than 11 million meals please welcome to the stage Michele and our panelists sir good morning well we are live yay good morning how many of you were here last year show of hands well I regret that we won't have the excitement of demonstrators or thus far we haven't had the excitement of demonstrators but I think we have a very exciting topic to share with you this morning so what I'd like to start with is an introduction of our panelists then I'll say just a brief short brief few minutes about snap itself and then we'll go into a Q&A with the panelist to my left this morning we have Cheryl Kennedy she's the acting Regional Administrator for USDA food nutrition service for the mountain Plains region which includes Iowa Cheryl was named the acting Regional Administrator in March of 2018 overseeing 15 hunger prevention and nutrition programs across this 10 state region prior to that Cheryl served as the regional division director of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program staff she began her career with FNS in 1999 with the regional food distribution program since that time she'll has worked in the special supplemental nutrition program for women infants and children also known as WIC and she's been the director of public affairs and field operations Cheryl's competitive spirit as a champion barrel racer is clearly evidenced in her unyielding commitment to though she serves to the left of Cheryl we have joining us today from Washington DC area Jeanne Blankenship she's a registered dietician nutritionist and the vice president of policy initiatives and advocacy for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Jeanne is the visionary for the Academy's advocacy platform which focuses on professional issues for dietitians and the nutritional professionals as well as food nutrition issues for consumers and community her advocacy work includes issues such as coverage and reimbursement for medical nutrition therapy malnutrition hunger and food security telehealth and workforce demands Virginie nutrition is just part of her DNA as she learned about growing preserving and food safety at a young age from her grandmother who was a homemaker economist in Oregon last but certainly not least is Regina hurt Virginia is the executive director of the Iowa Food Bank Association which is made up of the food bank of Iowa and the other five food banks which serve the entire 99 counties of Iowa and the Iowa hunger coalition this advocacy organization is designed to bring together all hunger fighting voices into one very powerful loud voice and a year ago today it was announced at this very summit I'll put in us that shameless pitch for any of you interested in joining that organization please talk to Regina after today's panel Regina has spent 10 years at vaque ting for individuals as an attorney in Virginia prior to joining ifba and IHC she was the public benefits staff attorney at virginia poverty law center and director of virginia hunger solutions in richmond virginia a strong belief in the rights of all to truly have meaningful equality justice dignity and happiness has been evident throughout Virginia's career and continues to fuel all of her endeavors so welcome to our esteem panelists today not very long ago I visited a mobile pantry and I met a young lady a single mom her name was Cindy and I asked Cindy are you getting what you need at the pantries if you smarted yes I also asked Cindy do you know about SNAP benefits in Cindy exclaimed yes thank God she had recently applied and been awarded SNAP benefits she went on to say her elementary school son was with her that because of SNAP benefits she was able to buy him new shoes for school this year which he proudly showed off Snap is the largest program in our domestic hunger safety net it's administered by the food and nutrition services arm of the USDA and offers nutrition assistance to millions of eligible low-income individuals and their families while providing economic benefit to our communities the Food and Nutrition Service works with state agencies Department of Human Services here in Iowa nutrition educators and retail providers to ensure that those eligible for nutrition assistance can make informed decisions about applying and accessing the benefits Snap is the federal name for the program which used to be known as food stamps because each state has the leeway to name the program whatever they'd like here in Iowa Snap is also known as food assistance in order to qualify an individual must have annual household income below nineteen thousand two hundred and ninety six dollars nineteen thousand two hundred ninety six dollars my starting salary when I graduated from Iowa State University in 1983 was nineteen thousand six hundred dollars or thirty nine thousand three hundred sixty dollars for a family of four in Iowa snap reaches over 175,000 house holds serving over 372 individuals in a state or 12 percent of our population lives at or below poverty with children the children in our state 15 percent of our children live at or below poverty snap helps one in nine rural households one in seven small town households one in eight metro households afford the healthy nutrition meals that they need last year this panel focused on the myths and the biases surrounding snap this year we'll take a look at health snap benefits families seniors children veterans and the communities in which they live to begin today's discussion I'd like to date each panelist to share a brief overview of the role that she plays in this system and we'll start with you this morning Cheryl such a pleasure to be here my role in snap started when I was about 5 and my role at that time was a consumer of the SNAP program my father was in a very very debilitating injury at work and was in the hospital for 11 months so long story short without the SNAP program my mom would not have been able to put food on our table for my brother and I so fast forward just a couple years just a couple I was selected to be the director of the SNAP program for the Food and Nutrition Service and we have as you had mentioned we oversee ten states and in that role I have three primary focuses if you will and that is customer service integrity and self sufficiency and in customer service what we're really trying to do is we are the compliance arm and there's no question about that we make sure that the program is ministered accurately and with the utmost integrity within compliance of all the federal regulations but in doing that we provide a high level of customer service and technical assistance to make sure that our partnering agencies at the state level are administering that program correctly we'd much rather work with them to make sure the program is administered correctly than to go out and do a finding let them spend the time on serving our clients secondly we have an integrity role and that is very widespread everything from the client side to the retailer side we want to make sure that the clients are getting the exact benefits that they need that's both just the right amount not too much not too little so we have a bit we have a very large integrity component to the SNAP program making sure that our clients get the benefits that they need not only in the amounts but on time and when that's not happening we work with our stakeholders and we go through and we actually provide business process reengineering if needed to help them streamline their processes if needed so that their benefits can be issued not just in time but on time and the third component is self sufficiency and when we talk about self sufficiency from a snap perspective it's not just about getting the job but it's about how we help clients live their daily lives to help them get a good nutrition a good nutritional start as we know everything from being a young child if you start with a good nutrition day you're gonna be able to learn better concentrate better and focus better and that goes all the way into finding helping our clients find well-paying stable employment and helping them get around some of the barriers that may provide that we also have a component and snap which is the nutrition education component snap bed which I know we're going to hear a lot more about today so we have lots of different components around snap and so my role in that is to oversee that our partners are administering those programs so that our clients get to get the best service that they possibly can at the end of the day Thank You Cheryl Jeanne we'd like to hear from you now hard to pass the barrel racing so I I did grow up as a 4h kid my mother and my grandmother were 4-h leaders and so I actually bucked the system a little bit and got to start participating before the minimum age level which was really great when I was about nine years old my grandmother who was previously mentioned was an extension agent in Wayne County Oregon and we went all over the state advocating for food safety and preservation but she had me stand in front of the Lane County Commissioners because as you know with those programs the funding comes from a variety of different sources so very early on in my life I learned to stand up and fight for these types of programs and as I navigated my way through college my grandmother was the one that encouraged me when I became interested in nutrition maybe you should go talk to the folks over at F Nevins you know what's going on over there so she played a central role in my life and I'm very fortunate now to have gone through lots of years of clinical nutrition and working in a surgical environment too now coming full circle back to policy and advocacy and I can say that's really where my my heart lies as an organization we're very much committed to food to agriculture and nutrition and then to Dietetics and we feel like all of those things are obviously intertwined when we think about snap it's hard for us as an organization to separate it from snap education because we feel like that education really does provide empowerment and tools for individuals to be able to maximize their resources we have a very strong advocacy campaign both on the snap side of the farm bill as well as snap education and we feel like our conversations with policymakers do bring in that education component you just heard a great panel talk about food waste and really from a system and retailers we bring it back down to the consumer level how can individuals maximize their home economy and be able to use the food that they have to extend it to work with all the programs and benefits that they might be receiving so while we work on on the farm bill and snap and snap ed we just as much champion those other food security programs that round out that safety net so it's it's not just even food programs thinking about Medicare and Medicaid as components of that safety and looking at social determinants of health spend a lot of time in the regulatory environment trying to help navigate that balance between just enough regulation to make sure that the programs are being run with integrity that we have the data and the numbers that we need about participation and outcomes that's a sight I think of the work that we do that's often overlooked everybody knows about legislation and advocacy that way but the regulatory piece is so important and making sure that organizations come together and share a voice is one of the things that I think our organization does particularly well thank you good morning all it's certainly a pleasure to be here I am proud to represent the Iowa Food Bank Association which works with pantries and soup kitchens and churches and other nonprofit organizations to provide direct assistance to individuals who are food insecure whether those are families whether those are children whoever that might be they can depend on going to the food banks to the pantries to the organizations that we provide supplies to to be able to get those things that they do need we have food banks throughout the state and we are certainly very very pleased to be able to serve those agencies that are serving the folks that are facing food insecurity and hunger the Iowa Food Bank Association also runs the SNAP outreach plan for the state of Iowa and that covers all 99 counties because as I'm sure we all know there is not one county in the state of Iowa that does not face hunger and so certainly we are pleased to be able to reach out and provide information provide education provide application assistance to those who are in need of food assistance benefits and that comes in an on-ground fashion where we attend various community events and we go to senior centers and we go to churches and we go to community days and we'll go anywhere basically that will have us to make sure that we are able to provide that assistance to folks who want to apply for food assistance and we also have a hotline that allows individuals to call in from the comfort of their home to be able to complete those applications and just so that you have it that phone number is eight five five nine four four food F ood that equates to three six six three on your telephone keypad individuals can call that number between 8:30 and 4:30 and they will be able to speak with a live operator who will assist them walk them through the process of submitting that application and then those applications are in real-time submitted to DHS and DHS takes further action DHS being the Iowa Department of Human Services so we are certainly very pleased to offer that program and to work in a direct access way we also work with the advocacy and the legislative part of it advocating on behalf of those clients who face food insecurity as it relates to the farm bill as well as it relates to the state policies that are regarding food access making sure that they understand that you know many other things like Michelle said we focus last year on some of the myths and things that still permeate the societal consciousness we need to make sure that people understand that hunger does not occur in a vacuum hunger is not as a result of some deficiency of character hunger is a result of circumstances circumstances that any one of us in this room could face at any given point in time and so we make sure that they understand that these are real people we know that Iowa has one of the lowest if not the lowest unemployment rates in the country but still we have approximately 10% of our population that need to depend on food assistance in order to put complete nutritious meals on the table so it's not as easy as saying get a job that's not the answer there are other barriers and issues that we have to address in order to be able to come up with a real and legitimate answer to ending hunger I'm always so proud to say we are working to put ourselves out of business and we are doing a really good job at it the Iowa hunger coalition is a broad-based advocacy organization and our focuses are education collaboration and advocacy that's what we do we make sure that our elected representatives know that hunger is an issue it impacts not only those folks who are facing hunger but it impacts our education system it impacts our medical system and impacts our healthcare it impacts our industries if you're hungry like we said before you can't focus you can't learn you can't think you can't work it impacts all of us and because it does legitimately impact all of us it's going to take all of us to come to the table and lend our voices and come up with a multi-faceted broad-based true and effectiv
and to hunger so I will copy Michele's pitch certainly if any of you want to become members of the hunger coalition we would welcome you because we know that as long as we stay in our own silos we are never going to come up with a definitive answer a comprehensive answer we have to share all the information that we have and gather information from all of the other entities who are interested because everyone should be interested in alleviating hunger thank you ladies well something Janie said took me back to my childhood I was the child of a generation of victory gardeners and spent most of my summer working in my family's garden I swear at times my parents procreated to have free labor for the garden and I complained about sitting under the tree shucking corn or snapping green beans now I realize my parents needed to do that to feed a family of six so where we used to be a society that gardened and preserved the bounty a lot of that's been lost family's parents are working several jobs to make ends meet trying to balance kids and family Jeanie can you tell us how Snap helps families receive the nutrition they need in today's world sure so I think it's a great point that our ability to prepare foods has changed and is very individual to the family itself it's erroneous to think that individuals and in this certain economic condition or other environmental conditions that they're in have any more or less time than than we do as busy women to care for their families and prepare meals there's been a lot of advances in technology and the types of food products that are available and we've seen this resurgence at the same time of individuals having access to community-based gardens and other programs and services I like to think of snapping when you think about putting together a puzzle most of us were taught that you start with the frame you start putting the borders together you get the corners and you build on that and once you have that framework then you can build on the inside of the puzzle and Snap is a lot like that it's the framework by which the other food access programs can build upon for a very specific group of individuals certainly those that qualify for other feeding assistance programs that have higher income maximums may not have need that same framework but for this group of folks it really puts together the opportunity for them to have a balanced diet and to receive the macro nutrients that they need an appropriate ratios one of the speakers on the last panel mentioned that some of the donations that they get are very much on the the breads and pastries and carbohydrates and the food bank system over the last twenty years has really done a fantastic job at looking at food quality and the types of foods that are distributed through their program being balanced in their approach you may not have that same level of I hate to use the word control but the the same level of adherence to nutrition in some of the community-based programs faith-based programs and others that are offering food or simply individuals sharing food it might be that oh you've got extra rice or you have extra corn those kinds of things but we know that people need protein and those tend to be expensive sources of nutrition and probably the most difficult for us in terms of putting that that puzzle together so for us having that opportunity through snap to say these are the important things that you can put together and purchase through your snap benefit and then to build upon that with the other sources that you might be receiving in terms of food access so again it provides that and through snap education and fnet programs there still is that opportunity to help empower families to prepare foods to understand that balance and not have to face that decision if they're a senior whether or not they're going to treat an illness whether they're going to buy diabetes medications and supplies or eat that that treater eat concept is is really important I was mentioning earlier in a conversation we had about the older Americans Act programs and congregate meal dining home delivered meals those are really great programs but they provide one-third of what a senior might need for the day so programs like Snap are going to allow those seniors to really go a little bit further and to gain more nutrition over the course of the day and not try to take half of a meal from lunch and make it hold over until dinner fruit and vegetable programs are great we advocate for those all the time but your whole diet can't be fruits and vegetables and grains unless you're being very smart about your your proteins and implant based proteins but my point is that it takes that entire puzzle it takes all of those pieces being put together for adequate nutrition and snap gives us the opportunity and the base to be able to do that Virginia I know that making certain children have the nutrition they need to learn and grow is a particular passion of yours when you think about those of you have children you think about an average elementary class size around 20 that three of your child's classmates suffer from food insecurity that's a frightening thing to me can you tell us Virginia more about the link between food assistance also known as snap and educational outcomes in our classrooms absolutely nutrition has long been established as a critical determinant in academic achievement and outcomes and learning 43% of those currently receiving food assistance here in Iowa are children forty-three percent forty point five percent of our children here in Iowa qualify for free and or reduced lunch which means they're between 160 and 180 five percent of the federal poverty level level that is a significant thing and that is something that certainly does have significant impacts on their ability to learn and to retain information studies have long shown that children who face food insecurity are more likely to have to repeat grades that their testing scores can be anywhere between 1 and three and a half points lower than those who do not face food insecurity that if children who had been on food assistance discontinued that at any point between kindergarten and third grade it impacts not only their math scores but their reading scores and the studies also confirm the flipside that children who have consistent access to food assistance and to those types of nutritious foods and the proteins that are going to be most important do better performance-wise reading and math scores go up approximately three percentage points in those children who have consistent access to food versus those who are food insecure continue to be food insecure testing with the intelligence scales and the wide range achievement scales show that both younger kids and teens who are food insecure score much lower than their counterparts and so it's not simply the elementary school children it's not just the toddlers but this is going into our teen years and the studies have also demonstrated that that changes if there is consistent access to food it has also demonstrated that where the benefit levels are higher those performance outcomes increased even more that in conjunction with the studies that show that generally the more benefits that people have are the more funds people have with which to purchase food they then tend to go to those more healthier options the more protein options the fresher fruits and the vegetables and so not only is this a question of having the access but at what level do we have the access because increasing those levels increases those performance outcomes and so certainly it is critical not only to those children because of course those children would grow up and so if you've had a better foundation and you're able to perform at a higher level as a child as a younger child then certainly that leads to better and higher for my academic performances and academic attainment as you continue to go forward if you are performing better then you're able to perhaps get into a better school if you're into a better school and you can still continue to perform better than perhaps that opens doors to have better jobs and more access if you're having more access and more jobs then you can truly be lifting people out of poverty and so it is critical that we understand that not having that access is impacting our skills gaps it's impacting the ability to be able to do the things that we need to do and we all know we have that experience if you don't have your morning coffee if you don't have your morning bagel if you don't have your morning egg you just can't quite get to that level that you need to get you to be the most productive and the most energetic and just be the best that you can be and so certainly if as adults who are much more able to control and contain our actions what can we expect of our children if they have to focus on the fact that they are hungry they can't do what they need to do and so that connection is absolutely critical and we need to continue to work to ensure that people know that you know hunger is a is a foundation it's a building block for everything else and so that connection is certainly very very critical and we need to make sure that our legislators our electives our anyone who's involved is realizing the importance of not being hungry and then academic achievement and attainment thank you shurl beyond the immediate help that Snap provides to families when a senior citizen or a single mom uses that EBT card at a convenience store or a grocery store how do those benefits multiply through that community in that local economy that's a great question and I like as you like to look at snap as a framework I think snap also in regards to the impact that have has on the economy it's like a when you throw a stone into the middle of a pond and those ripples just keep going out and I like to think about the economic impacts in that way and so where you were to go on a journey with those ripples let's start with the client first so I go in and I spend my benefit at the at the grocery store on food what that's done for me is that's allowed me to use my other funding resources too because I have a pretty tight budget I can now use the other funds that I have to purchase things like child care medicine new tennis shoes for school maybe it's a new shirt that I need to do to participate in a club it helps me stretch my dollars because I now have food dollars in there so then I spend that at a grocery store so then what so at the grocery store those benefits are spent at farmer's markets grocery stores convenience stores retailers of all all sizes and that then impacts into the economy and what we can say is that for every dollar of benefit that is spent it really injects about a dollar seventy nine so a nicer way to say that were a more impactful way is for every five dollars that I spend as a client I am providing nine dollars of money into the economy through being able to purchase other things through helping the retailers participate in the whole rest of the food system it goes down into the trucking industry into the farming industry and then then let's also take it into the farming industry as you had mentioned earlier we have a program here in Iowa in several several states as well double up food bucks and what that does is I spend 10 I can spend up to ten dollars of my benefit money it's matched with ten dollars so now I'm able to spend twenty dollars into the economy and helping the farmers grow so it's three so it's three full it helps me as the client stretch my dollars helps retailers and farmers improve and increase their revenue streams which then increases the economic impacts down line and it also keeps those dollars into the Iowa economy both a food economy and the outside domestic economy from a national perspective the impacts of snap are we we injected approximately sixty three billion dollars into the economy so you multiply that out and the impact on jobs is about for every one billion dollars spent into the economy it's on the low side creates about nine thousand jobs that's on the low side so if you multiply that out by sixty three billion dollars that is put into the economy that's over a half a million jobs that snap creates just by its processes just by spending that EBT putting that EBT card at the retailers and then how it spreads out so it's a great ripple effect on on us on several different levels economic impacts that oftentimes we don't talk enough about and we probably need more research and studies but just looking at the health and wellness component and the impact of on health care cost and chronic disease because as we provide these foods and services and access to food for individuals than it is directly linked to whether or not they're going to to need certain types of health care or be more susceptible for certain chronic diseases in that aspect of it seems to often be left out of economic conversations it's something that we talked to policymakers about a lot because going back to it's not just about providing foods that eventually will lead individuals to have more chronic disease by the very nature of the foods that you're providing it's about providing them access to foods that allow them to live a healthy life so they can avoid those chronic diseases and I think the other economic side of it is we talk a lot about the training component in in the farm bill and looking at employment certainly just with children in schools being more attentive and having better academic outcomes if you're an individual that's seeking employment and you're a snap beneficiary then that same food is gonna allow you to be more productive in the workplace as an adult and as we think about what it takes to be successful in employment that's a huge piece of it and so the benefits are not just in childhood they're across the spectrum and I do think that the economic piece of it is a really important conversation looking at it both locally nationally and tying it back to health care costs because that healthcare cost for a local entity or for a state is a major consideration of their budget so anytime that we can link those two programs and say if they participate and receive this information receive food access that there's going to be a reduced health care cost that's beneficial for the states Thank You Jeanne that leads me right into another question you represent and work with over a hundred thousand nutrition and dietetics professionals across the United States how do they use snap as a tool in their nutrition tool chest with over a hundred thousand professionals we have people working in a variety of different settings certainly here in Iowa with with Doris Montgomery you guys have a really great network that's been established and is a model for other states but we're very proud to see our members serve in those types of positions either through epinet F net snap education or other safety net programs some of the biggest advocates for first snap and snap ed are actually those members in our organization that work in child nutrition programs because they see firsthand that if you don't just provide one meal a day or just you know 135 dollars a month of of food but if you really give children access to breakfast lunch after school programs fruit and vegetables if you do backpack programs on the weekend they see the comprehensive need for the family needs to be met for the entire component of their food to be systemic if you will and so so there are huge advocates for snap and build upon that and of course our dietitians that work in public health settings recognize the importance it's one of the first things we do when we do a nutrition assessment is to look at food stability and to look at economic stability with regards to the social determinants of health and making sure that as we provide counseling and education to that individual that we're looking for opportunities to give them additional food to do better with the food that they do have to understand purchasing and storage and so as an organization we try to do a lot on the advocacy side as I mentioned earlier but we also then want to provide professional development in training from for our entire membership and so you'll see at
ur meetings that we're constantly providing education and pulling in our experts that work in these programs to help train other dietitians to be ready to call the call to action certainly you see them you know dietitians working in food banks we're proud of the work that they've done there in terms of helping to provide healthier options and putting together kind of that broader nutrition's perspective from the packages that are being distributed Thank You Cheryl you just talked about I'm using that EBT card at a retailer and so often we think of SNAP benefits as that EBT card yet I know that EBT or excuse me I know that Snap is much more than the EBT card and that there's a very important education and training program associated with snap can you tell us more about that and how Iowans could axe that program sure so we call it through snap employment and training program and first because like you said it is more the snap program has a lot of components so it's not just about the food but I want to be clear when we talk about the employment training component of it we know and have mentioned earlier that a lot of the snap clients are children elderly and the disabled and for those we for sure absolutely we want to make sure that they get the food assistance that they need so when we're talking about employment and training and work requirements in the SNAP program we're really focused on the able-bodied adults who are not employed at the time or are underemployed so what FNS does is we take on a funding role for employment and training programs and so this is how it works we work with employment agencies workforce development partners and actual employer and agency employer actual employer organizations as well and we work with the state agency in this case the Department of Human Services and they partner and contract with employment partners who provide different kinds of employment and training components and that can be anything from job search job readiness actual specific employment skills or short time trade skills those partners then provide that training and those those services to our clients using non-federal funds then we pay the state 50% of what those people who are contracting those services for so if I'm a contractor and I'm providing training I can submit a claim to the state to get reimbursed for 50% of that train so for me as a training provider I can then not only can I help say ten people for easy math I can now help 20 people so I've been able to expand my reach that way we also know that not all but some of our snap clients are hard to place they've had some challenges whether that be under skilled disabilities homelessness drug abuse substance abuse separation so a lot of those are those kinds of things are hard to to get employment sometimes and so the state will oftentimes contract with community-based organizations who actually provide some of those services so some of those services will help people get employment stable by teaching them skills like what happens when my car breaks down and I still have to get to work what's your plan so they will help those clients already have a plan for those or what happens when I wake up and my child has a stomachache and I can't get them to school who's your backup plan so they help them work through those things so that imports so that they are employable when they have when they go to get those those jobs and those kinds of things and those training programs and job search training skills interviewing skills how to dress best skills all of those can be provided through these programs and in Iowa here 65 of 99 counties through the Iowa Department of Human Services are running the employment and training program in Iowa that includes nine community colleges and the Iowa Workforce Development Service and the community colleges are providing over 60 different certificate programs and that's including lab support help welding bookkeeping nursing CNA assistance and all of this is very challenging work but it's targeted to be short term skill building so that people can get employed and to help bring themselves and their families out of poverty and put them on the road to self-sufficiency so ent although it is working with a lot of different pieces of the work spectrum when you think being employment getting unemployment ready employment sustainable it really does work and I'm there's been so many great success stories but one in particular that that is close to home here is there was a woman who she went to the Cedar Valley Iowa Works program and she had been unemployed for seven years sometimes you know working on short-term food service minimum wage wage jobs and she heard about the employment training program and said yes I qualify and I want to be a part of that so she was able to go through the Hawkeye community college and get her certificate as a CNA she was she passed these she was top of her class she passed the state boards and she very quickly was hired by a healthcare provider starting at $12.60 an hour and that was just the beginning for her and so with that she is decided to continue to pursue her healthcare career and is advancing and her her commentary is I could not have done this with the help of the snap employment training program because not only did you give me the confidence in the hope that I could do it but you provided transportation Scrubs fees for testing so that she could make the test so it provides all those things to help her get on her feet and so she was very she was a she was a great success story right here out of out of Iowa and the great program that they run thank you well continuing on that theme virginia is our resident Iowan on the panel we've talked a lot this morning about how SNAP benefits at a high level how SNAP benefits our state can you talk just a little bit in a few minutes we have left of how you've witnessed snap benefiting Iowans and Iowa communities I will start with the retailer portion of it as of 2017 which is the latest data available there were two thousand nine hundred and forty four snap retailers here in the state of Iowa they redeemed over four hundred and eighty five million dollars of benefits almost a half a billion dollars that came here to Iowa specifically as a result of the food assistance program and so that is critical especially when we have many of the snap retailers who are in rural areas who may be one of the only retailers in those particular areas and so a buddhist instance clearly provides a huge benefit beyond the individual who was receiving those benefits much like he just said I met a young lady at the State Fair this past year and this story has an up and down but the up portion of it is that she was able to get food assistance benefits which freed up some of her income she was able to get more consistent transportation which allowed her to be able to work more hours at her job which then allowed her to show how well she could perform at her job which then turned into a full-time job which then turned into being able to get academic assistance which then turned in to be able to gaining more to be able to gain more skills with the education which then turned into being able to find a better job which then turned into her being able to be self-sufficient and now she understands that process in that cycle and she now volunteers at her church when there are food distributions to be able to help other folks on that same road to self-sufficiency and so it is just an amazing state builder because when you have that security and knowing that you do have that food the family are stronger when the family are stronger the community are stronger when the community is stronger then the state is stronger and so certainly the impact of food assistance goals well beyond the individual and it impacts all of us here in the state Wow I've learned a lot today I don't know about all of you we have just almost less than a minute left if each of you could just a brief thought what last few words would you leave with us this group for I would just say that all of us working together to work on eliminating I would just say to extend on that we all have a voice and it's very important that we exercise that voice that we use opportunities with local state and federal policymakers to talk about this issue to talk about the solutions I'm glad you talked about myths last year because I think having those discussions about the a lot of myths that are out there regarding the SNAP program what it is and what it is not are conversations that you all could have and would be very impactful and make a difference in this space just a piggyback off of that the down part of that story was that young lady did not want to tell me her name because she was ashamed that she had even had to have benefits so it is critical that we raise our voices and make it clear that these folks who are on food assistance are not bad people they don't need suspicion they need support and that's something that we can all do well I thank you this morning for your attention and I thank the panelists for this great information and I know you're going to have an exciting remainder of your day thank you for having us here today Oh Michelle Michelle
