SNAP & SNAP-Ed: A Lifeline for Maine Families

This episode is the first in a special series here at Healthy Maine Talks where we'll dig into upcoming policy decisions in D.C. that will impact communities in Maine. 

For this episode we cover SNAP and SNAP-Ed. There's a lot of unknowns right now about what's happening in D.C, but what we do know is SNAP and SNAP-Ed are potentially on the chopping block as Congress considers the reconciliation bill and the future budgets. Hannah Siladi has a history of working with SNAP-Ed in Maine, and she joins Matt in this episode to share details about these programs in Maine and why they're a lifeline for families and older adults in our state.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey, everybody. Welcome to this special episode of Healthy Maine Talks. This is your host, Matt Wellington, and also Associate Director of Maine Public Health Association. This is the first episode in a special series that we are introducing now on federal policy and how some of the decisions being made and considered in DC will impact folks across Maine and communities all over our state. There are a lot of unknowns right now about what's happening at the federal level, but one thing that we do know is SNAP and SNAP-Ed are potentially on the chopping block, as Congress considers the reconciliation bill and future budgets. So for this episode, Hannah Salati, who has a history of working with SNAP-Ed in Maine, joins me for Healthy Maine Talks to share details about these programs in Maine and how they are a lifeline for families and older adults in our state. So please stay tuned for my interview with Hannah, and thanks so much for listening. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this special episode of Healthy Maine Talks. We are here to discuss the federal appropriations situation and how it's shaping up to affect public health across the country and especially here in Maine. And with me today, I have Hannah Salati, who is an MPHA member who works within some of the programs that are on the chopping block in the federal budget. And so I asked Hannah to join me and share her perspective on why these programs matter to Maine. Specifically, we're going to chat about SNAP and SNAP-Ed and how that funding and the programmatic work that happens due to it in our communities is essential to allowing our kids, the next generation of Maine, and their families to thrive. So, Hannah, thanks for jumping on with me. I appreciate it. Is there anything else you'd want to share about your scope of work?

SPEAKER_01: 2:07

Not really. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. And yeah, just a avid public health professional in the state and care about all these programs so much and just excited to have a chance to talk about these two in particular.

SPEAKER_00: 2:22

Yeah, absolutely. So for myself and for our listeners who might not be as familiar with SNAP and SNAP-Ed, can you start off by just giving a very big picture overview on the programs? What are they? What do they do? How long have they been around as far as you can share?

SPEAKER_01: 2:40

Yeah, yeah, the history might be my stumbling, but I'm gonna definitely give it a go here. So SNAP to begin with is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP for short, it used to a lot of people know colloquially or just from the previous history of it as food stamps is now known as SNAP. It is a federal program that is funded through the Farm Bill, which is a big process that's every four years. And it is a very specific program that is designed for income eligible folks, which in our state and nationally is 200% of the federal poverty level. And those people who are eligible receive dollars every month for food. Probably a lot of people will know that the foods are quite restricted, what people can buy. It does change, but essentially it's typically like, food items you can't do prepared foods you often can't do drink nothing from restaurants that kind of thing is pretty specific um and um it's calculated every four years based on something called the thrifty food plan which is all about basically just how much food you should be able to afford averages across the nation that kind of thing um and the other important thing is based on how many working adults, how many children, et cetera, in the house. The number can vary quite widely based on what people get. For an individual person with no children, the number's pretty small. And for a big family, the number is still fairly small, honestly, but it is consistent at least. And so then SNAP-Ed stands for SNAP education. And what SNAP education does is empower those who receive the SNAP benefit to maximize their food dollars, to eat healthy, be physically active, and prevent diet-related heart disease. In fact, it's the only statewide obesity prevention and nutrition education program that's solely focused on Mainers experiencing low income. So really, it's an accompaniment to SNAP that really strengthens the program and stretch the dollars as far as possible, again, to help people eat healthy and live active lifestyles.

SPEAKER_00: 4:57

So essentially it's like a, it is an efficiency mechanism, right? Helping folks get the most out of their dollars. And it's also a health intervention. I shared this on another podcast episode. I don't know if it'll come before this or after this, but I have high blood pressure. And so my doctor prescribed lifestyle changes and I'm supposed to stay under 1500 milligrams of sodium for the day. And that has been so freaking difficult. And I'm a relatively privileged person who runs in these circles And so I think programs like this are so essential for people to help them navigate nutrition, which is complicated. Um, and just to give people a sense of reach, I'm looking at some of the resources you shared with me, Hannah, and it says that, um, 21,000, over 21,000 Mainers. It looks like participate in SNAP-Ed. And it says 62% rural community sites. What does that mean, 62% rural community sites?

SPEAKER_01: 5:58

So of all of the sites that we reach statewide, so schools, churches, community sites, low-income housing sites, 62% of them are classified in rural areas. So just, you know, we work in all of the counties across the state, and we try to make sure that we have based on the number of eligible people in each county staff that are, you know, relate to that for how many people. And we actually have 173,000 main people who are, who participate in the SNAP program and anyone who is eligible for SNAP is also eligible for SNAP. So that, 21,000 that you mentioned is the people that we reach directly with education, but there are actually a lot more people who are eligible for SNAP and SNAP-Ed who don't necessarily get access to it because of lack of staff, lack of funding, and a lot of stigma too, honestly, around the SNAP program. There's a huge amount of stigma. stigma around any programs that serve low-income people, you know, having to pull out that special EBT card at the grocery store where everyone kind of knows that you are low-income and that you are using these programs just gears a lot of people away from actually using them.

SPEAKER_00: 7:13

That's such a shame. So do you know how we relate to other states in terms of the amount of people we serve here in Maine through SNAP and SNAP-Ed?

SPEAKER_01: 7:23

So what I can say is that we are, we have some of the highest food insecurity in the nation. We have a lot, you know, compared with every state in the country, we have a lot of, a high percentage of people who are eligible for SNAP. Of course, how many people we serve, I don't, I can't say that I could, you know, give you an exact number for that, you know, how many we have versus how many we serve, but I do know that, yeah, we have some of the highest food insecurity in the nation. and people living in rural, rurality and people living in poverty. And we know too that one in eight Mainers live in homes without enough food in our state and experience food insecurity.

SPEAKER_00: 8:06

So, you know, now to bring it back to the present and please correct me if I mischaracterize any of this, Hannah, and there's still a lot of, I think unknowns and it's changing very fast, but as I understand it, the reconciliation package that the House has just passed and now is about to go through to the Senate. And for folks, as a reference, we're having this conversation on June 5th. That reconciliation package essentially zeroes out SNAP-Ed, right? So it makes significant cuts to SNAP and zeroes out SNAP-Ed. And so what I... That's correct. Okay, great. So what I have been trying to do with MPHA and with our networks is to share how does this actually filter down into our communities in Maine. Federal programs can feel super abstract and... you know, it's hard to make it feel like it really hits you and your communities. And so can you share some examples of how people use the programs and how it's impacted their lives and essentially like what they will miss when this is gone?

SPEAKER_01: 9:18

Yeah, totally. So I'll try to give a little bit of a community perspective and then also some more specific examples. SnapEd, Our model is heavily community-based. So at the get-go, we have 38 nutrition professionals across the state who will lose their jobs. So that is community impact. They work in hundreds of schools across the state as well. So anyone who knows that their kids get nutrition education in school, almost all of that comes from SNAP-Ed because we don't have nutrition education in our schools otherwise. And so... A lot of community gardens and school gardens were created and maintained by SNAP-Ed. And so a lot of those potentially will go away. So the majority of our staff, again, are embedded in these community coalitions across the state and they partner directly with schools, housing sites, community centers, farmers markets. And so at a community level, a lot of our goals are actually around supporting agriculture, communities and specifically rural communities and local food systems. So a couple of examples, we run or we help to implement a program called the Power of Produce at Local Farmers Market, which incentivizes healthy shopping choices and supports local farmers by increasing vendor revenue. So what it actually looks like is the SNAP-Ed program funds tokens for folks to use at farmer's markets where they can get additional dollars to bring them to the farmer's market because so much, again, coming back to the stigma, people, if you go to a farmer's market and you just see food lying around with no price tags on it, no unit prices, it can be really scary if you have a limited budget to shop at a farmer's market. And so we have, again, many, many farmer's markets across the state right now, which accept EBT. And those dollars, those SNAP federal dollars, are going directly to farmers, directly to community members. And so with reductions in SNAP, people are probably not going to be spending those few, few dollars that they get at farmers markets. Those dollars are going to go even less far. And then they won't have that additional incentive program, which gives them extra money to send to the market. And on top of that, there's always a nutrition educator at those markets. to help walk them around, show them how to shop at a farmer's market, give them recipes. Okay, you've got these carrots, you've got these onions, you've got these greens. How are you going to prepare them at home? Because that's often a big, that's a huge part, which it's not that it does, it's skill building so that it's not just receiving the EVP money, but actually gaining skills so that, you know, one day perhaps you're not having to use SNAP anymore, but you still have the skills to stretch your food dollars. And so that's, those are just a few things that people aren't going to see anymore. And, you know, we reached around 600 people last year through that market program in farmers markets across the state. And that's just the POP program, not even just EBT at farmers markets, because those are tons of markets across the state. And then you know, kind of more, a little bit bigger or a little bit broader with food systems, we have helped SNAP-Ed has helped to establish or strengthen gleaning networks all across the state. If you're not familiar with what gleaning is, it's essentially like harvesting excess produce from farms and farmers and then giving it back to the community. And so we, in partnership with farms, with local ag organizations, help to glean that produce and give it to food pantries. The food pantries have a lot more fresh produce than they've ever had. Sometimes it goes directly to low-income housing. Sometimes it goes directly to a library where older adults may visit regularly and be able to pick up some free produce. So a lot of all of those programs, again, it's completely defunded, will not exist anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 13:28

And we have such a strong local food culture here. And I've seen this program in use at my farmer's market. I think it's just really important to elevate that, that this is all connected. We have a program that's helping families thrive with healthy food, with education around nutrition, and it's directly benefiting our local farmers. So yeah, clearly a very strong community benefit. Can you share on a more granular level, how do individuals experience this? What are some of the folks that you've interacted with that are using this program and how do they feel about it?

SPEAKER_01: 14:05

Yeah, so the biggest part of what we do and the most people that we reach is with our nutrition education. So at the community level, we again have those 38 nutrition educators, that um will go into you know again schools and do a curriculum we have one that's called pick a better snack and it's all about getting kids to try new foods and to love new foods and you know then the amount of data that we have from those curricula that are just like you know my child never tried pineapple before and now it's their favorite food or something like that um you know we get a ton of survey data and we hear from parents and we hear from schools. If there's a time where we can't serve a school, we get calls from the teachers that are like, oh, please come back. We miss you. We love the programming. Our kids don't get nutrition education any other way. And so that is a huge part. We do a school-based education and we do that all the way through teens. So in addition to children, we serve a lot of adults as well, adults and older adults. And what that can look like, again, is curricula, classroom education, but for adults. And so one of our curricula is called Cooking Matters, which is actually a nationwide program. And maybe a nutrition educator would go to a low-income housing site or community center, recruit some adults. And it's a six-week program where every week they would come and they would learn about budgeting, they would learn about cooking, they learn about grocery shopping, part of cooking matters is something called a store tour, where they actually go to a grocery store and look at food labels. Because again, that's something that so many people never look at nutritionist labels and learn what to look for, learn about unit pricing, again, like things that are really important and can make a huge difference. and build those long-term skills. And in addition to teaching the classes, the nutrition educator at the community level may also work with the housing site to build a community garden on the housing site, where then the residents can have access, they can grow their own food, they can learn about growing food again, and just, again, learn the skills that help make healthy eating and active living in reach for folks who are experiencing low income in our state.

SPEAKER_00: 16:28

Yeah, it's about making the healthy choice the easy choice, right? So, and I just want to reiterate what you started with in your initial comments about how this is like a direct line from this program to preventing chronic diseases, right? So diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, like what I'm dealing with, you know, so yeah, just a direct line. And so... So Hannah, as I mentioned before, I'm trying to show the public at large and our policymakers in Maine, what kind of impact these programs can have in someone's everyday life. So is there anything else you can share about how people experience SNAP and SNAP-Ed, especially on a positive note, right? Like how are people positively experiencing these programs? Is there anything else you can share on that front?

SPEAKER_01: 17:17

So what I would say is that, first of all, we have a lot of great stories that or there are a lot of great stories to be found on the main SNAP-Ed website. There are success stories and a lot of great information. And one I can highlight, there is a couple of years ago, a video which also can be viewed on the main SNAP-Ed website that highlights a whole program in the Norway area, their SNAP-Ed program, where there was a really lovely partnership with the Norway community garden with local schools. There's actually a farmer's market that happens there and nutrition education that happens. They have a whole kind of like really lovely food systems site in Norway. And one of the stories that's shared in that video is about a mom just trying to get her teenager interested in cooking and enjoying food in the home and like how hard it is sometimes to get teenagers excited about anything, but just having, you know, autonomy and some more interesting learning through NABED nutrition education classes. Some of our classes are for families as well. So you have adults and kids working together. And again, how impactful that can be for just families who are, you know, just kind of living day to day in many or paycheck to paycheck, however you want to describe it. finding joy in food and finding joy in cooking together with their families. And in some ways, that's a small thing. But I think in many ways, it's a really big thing that makes people's lives, how they relate to their kids, what kind of joy they get in cooking and eating. And I just think they're just important stories to uplift that will be lost.

SPEAKER_00: 19:04

And I'm checking out the website now, and I'll put a link to this in the chat, or sorry, in the show notes, not the chat, that people can check out. I'm so used to Zoom. And I just came across one that I... Did not think of at all. So when I think about SnapBed, I mostly relate it to kids and parents. But this success story on the website is about fresh produce and recipes to enhance senior boxes through Maine's Commodities Supplemental Food Program. So definitely would encourage people to check out this full story. But it says that the pickup locations in Western Maine, the local Maine SnapEd nutrition educator worked with a community coalition to enhance those boxes for low-income seniors so that they could get more healthy, non-perishable foods. And yeah, I just did not think about older adults as part of this too. So it sounds like a really kind of far reaching program. So, you know, is there anything else you'd want to leave with our listeners, Hannah, as they mull all this over? And again, hoping to make sure our policymakers in Maine and at the federal level understand the value of these programs and work hard to protect them as I'm sure they will. So anything you'd want to leave our listeners with?

SPEAKER_01: 20:18

Okay, so the last thing that I would would share is that SNAP-Ed is part of a bigger picture. It is a relatively small program overall, but it strengthens a really big program, the SNAP program. And if people are not only losing their benefits, but also losing the ability to learn how to stretch those benefits, people are going to be really impacted. And we know that food pantries cannot fill that gap. We don't have enough food pantries. Why SNAP and SNAP-Ed really thrive is because people are able to use those dollars in grocery stores and farmer's markets and a lot of places. And if they are only reliant on food pantries, their hunger is just going to really go up in our state. And if you layer on Medicaid for that and other programs that are being put, again, the big gauge is just our families and especially our low-income adults, they're really going to be losing a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 21:15

Well, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for doing this with me, Hannah. I appreciate it. And yeah, thank you again. Of

SPEAKER_01: 21:23

course. Thanks for having me.