Hi!
Good morning, welcome to the 2017 National Summer Meals summit.
We will have keynote guest speaker Anne Hazlett with us momentarily, but I am going to give
you guys a view of what's going on right now.
[crowd noise]
Thank you.
My wife does this, as a former high school teacher.
So, it's my honor to introduce our next keynote speaker, someone who has shared her strength
in the fight against childhood hunger.
Anne Hazlett, Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development at USDA.
Anne has a unique understanding of what kids face in rural areas, particularly around childhood
nutrition; has a long history of supporting rural causes in our country both professionally
and personally.
As a native of Indiana, Anne has worked on issues and impacted rural communities for
more than fifteen years.
She served as Director of Agriculture for the Indiana Department of Agriculture, advising
the Governor on Agriculture and rural issues.
She served as Chief of Staff to the Indiana Lt. Governor where she assisted in the creation
of the State's first Office of Community and Rural Affairs.
And most recently, Anne was the republican Chief Counsel for the Senate Committee on
Agriculture, advising the committee on many issues impacting rural America from farm bill
programs to broadband, to child nutrition.
At Share Our Strength, we've been fortunate enough to work with Anne over the past few
years, and I can attest to her deep commitment to improving the lives of Americans living
in rural America.
We're so glad to have her with us today to share her insights on how we can continue
to strengthen summer feeding programs in rural communities.
Let's give a warm welcome to Anne.
[applause]
Well good morning everyone, thank you Duke for that very kind introduction.
I am truly honored to be with you today
and have a chance
to visit with you about hunger and partnerships in
rural America-- a passion that I know I share with so many of you here today.
I am almost six months into my job in leading our team at USDA Rural Development-- but it
is most fitting that my first opportunity to speak at an event in the hunger community
would be this conference.
Just last year, I attended this very event-- with absolutely no thought that I would ever
serve in the role I currently hold.
At the time I came to this event, I was working on the Senate Ag Committee and it was a particularly
difficult day to be here-- because we had just learned that the child nutrition reauthorization
bill was likely dead.
I remember being very raw coming here and hugging Lucy Melcher out in the hallway before coming into the
meeting room because both of us knew where it was going. it had been such a long and winding journey to end up without a bill.
It was a day I almost didn't come to this event because it was hard to be here.
But like so many other moments in life, there was a hidden purpose in that day-- it was
then that I attended a breakout session where I learned about an awesome partnership between
our state Rural Development office in Virginia, TM property managers, and the Virginia Department
of Parks and Recreation, I believe; and then a non-profit foundation in Southeast Virginia called C3.
They had partnered together to feed families living in
in multi-family housing properties that Rural Development finances.
I took tons of notes that day and walked out thinking how amazing and inspiring this story
was-- but asking myself all the way home - why in the world is this a best practice--
why are we not doing this in so many rural communities, particularly where USDA has these investments already.
Investments I was familiar with from my work on the hill.
So with that backdrop-- as I fast forward a year later almost to the day-- I want to
start by saying that I have the deepest respect for each of you in this room today working
on the frontlines of hunger.
I am relatively new to my role at USDA but I am certainly not new to the incredibly complex challenge
of addressing food insecurity in rural America.
From Farm Bills to child nutrition legislation and state agriculture initiatives, this is
an issue that I have worked on in my professional life-- it is also an issue that I have seen
firsthand in volunteer ministry work-- in Indiana, my home state; West Virginia, where I spent a fair amount of time and beyond.
If you take nothing else from what I say today, I hope you know that I share your passion on
and I want to be your partner in finding
innovative solutions to ensure that no kid goes hungry in these places.
I don't know what specific challenge or
opportunity each of you face in your community or state-- but whatever that may be, if it
is in a rural place I want you to know that Rural Development wants to be your partner.
We have a longstanding motto at the agency that we are Committed to the future
of rural communities.
And, we take this charge very seriously.
We have resources for utilities, housing, community facilities and business development, with all of that, Rural
Development stands ready to work with you to make a difference in your community-- whether
it is a structure need like a new health care clinic or a critical resource issue such as
providing children in need with access to food during the summer months.
There is a long and time-tested partnership between USDA and the hunger community in ensuring
kids don't go hungry-- no matter what zip code in which they live.
As we now look out on the horizon together as partners, there are very real challenges in rural America.
I'm sure many of you see that first-hand.
Today, nearly 85 percent of the nation's poorest counties are rural.
One in four children living in rural America is living in poverty.
While rural places have some of the country's most charming and historic communities, many
small towns lack the robust modern infrastructure to keep them connected to the modern world.
With those challenges, rural communities are often vulnerable to sudden downturns--
from unexpected events such as a natural disaster like the hurricanes we have seen, or a plant closing.
To maximize the impact of our resources--
our people and our programs-- in addressing these challenges, Secretary Perdue has given us
one simple goal: To facilitate rural prosperity.
As we tackle that goal in a very challenging budget environment, we are focused on
three priorities: infrastructure, partnerships and innovation.
I'll start with infrastructure, here we recognize that modern, robust infrastructure is
a necessity -- not an amenity -- for any community to thrive.
No matter what zip code you live in, infrastructure is a foundation for quality of life and opportunity.
Years ago, when our predecessors started moving rural America out of the 19th century, the
big infrastructure challenge of the day was electricity.
Today, the challenge has shifted to new issues like broadband, access to quality education and workforce training,
and modern health care clinics - infrastructure that connects families, particularly families on the margin, to critical resources
that are a cornerstone of prosperity in the 21st century.
But the need remains the same.
In the specific area of broadband - infrastructure that is truly a lifeline,
Secretary Perdue has made connecting rural communities a key focus for our team.
He recognizes that this infrastructure is transformational and it's power. We consider it to be the electricity of the modern age.
In many of our most underserved rural areas, isolation remains a real barrier
-- and isolation isn't just a matter of miles and cost.
For kids growing up in persistent poverty,
horizons may be limited by their immediate and often dismal surroundings.
but with connectivity that landscape changes, it becomes as broad as that child's imagination.
Broadband throws open the window to a new picture, one that is a world
of opportunities and choices.
With that picture of opportunity comes knowledge, which can inform goals and decisions
that they will make.
that ultimately shape a brighter future for them.
So while we believe it is important that no kid goes hungry, it is equally important that we bolster the tools
that are necessary to break the cycle of poverty that created a need.
Today, 40 percent of rural Americans still lack access to robust, reliable high-speed
internet -- the likes of which people living in the city enjoy.
We have to do better.
It won't be easy, but we believe that a solution is imperative.
As we follow Secretary Perdue's directive to tackle this issue head-on
we're focused on greater collaboration between our Federal agencies that are all involved
in delivering these resources. We're looking at how to increase innovation in deployment of this technology
and how to improve our internal processes at USDA to make our tools for connectivity easier to use.
Moving forward in a pursuit of the solution, we will look for new ways to work with partners like each of you in this room
to ensure rural communities have the tools that they need to prosper.
Our second priority is partnerships.
Here, we need to break down silos and build multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional
and multi-sectoral partnerships that will benefit rural America.
In particular, we want to better leverage our resources with organizations like many of you who are working on the ground to
improve the quality of life in rural communities.
Since I came into this role six months ago, I have traveled to 15 states and seen the
importance of partnership firsthand.
I've already mentioned a terrific partnership in rural Virginia.
where summer meal providers were able to innovate in the way that they are delivering summer meals
by leveraging the assets of a Rural Development multi-family housing property.
I've seen several of those projects elsewhere in southern Virginia
and I'm looking forward to seeing many more projects like that take shape as we place the priority on partnerships
Another example that I've been inspired by is a project that I believe you will have an opportunity to learn more about in
a breakout session and that's from my home state of Indiana. Here, an organization - very innovative -
known as The Clearinghouse, it's based in Madison, Indiana. This is a rural community in the southcentral part of the state.
There, in the summer of 2016, The Clearinghouse partnered with a nearby
Correctional Facility to feed hungry kids in their county after their traditional meal sponsor backed out on short notice.
They were able to use the skills and talents of women who were incarcerated in this facility
to help package the meals and The Clearinghouse is really an example of harnessing the power
of partnership to feed the next generation in its community, while also assisting
women on the margin in gaining culinary arts training.
This is a terrific success story, and exactly the sort of creative partnership we want to
encourage and foster.
As an aside, I want to note that this effort was led in part by a woman named Molly Dodge
who happens to be here today, I believe.
Like many of you, Molly is a source of personal inspiration to me,
and a force to be reckoned with. I think where there is a problem, she is your solution.
I'm proud to know her, and I hope that you will have an opportunity to interact with her,
seek her out this week as you are here for her wisdom and encouragement
in your own journey, in your own community.
As we move forward in this effort to partner, I want to flag for you two immediate opportunities.
First, we have nearly all of our state Rural Development directors on-board-- 43 of the 47 State Offices have begun their work.
They happen to all be in town this week, hence why I needed to move the speaking from yesterday to this morning.
We have them in town doing an orientation and right out of the gate, we are doing a deep dive into the
importance of partnerships, and the fact that this will be a true expectation from our Administration
as they serve in their role.
From businesses to community foundations to non-profit organizations like many of you, to local
leaders that you work with, we will be asking these State Directors: What are those new partners at that community level
that we can best engage in building stronger rural communities in their state?
Put bluntly, you in this room are exactly the sort of partner we will be looking for these important State leaders to engage.
So please help us make this connection by seeking them out.
Another opportunity for partnership: Earlier this year-- Secretary Perdue led an interagency task force on Agriculture
and Rural Prosperity.
This effort brought together 22 different federal agencies, all who have resources devoted to rural.
Their work covered a wide swath of issues impacting rural communities. Everything from quality of life, workforce development,
and economic opportunity.
Food insecurity is an issue that, as you know, connects to many of those concerns.
The Task Force issued a report in late October that's gone to the White House for release, and as implementation moves forward in the
coming year, I look for a real opportunity for innovation and partnership at the federal,
state and local level.
Lastly, we are focused on innovation.
Rural communities have ever-evolving challenges and opportunities needing fresh and creative solutions.
For example, consider the geography of child hunger.
In my home state of Indiana, the town of Austin is a small town in southcentral
Indiana, ravaged, like so many other rural communities, by the opioid epidemic in recent years.
In my opinion, perhaps the greatest victim of this crisis is the children of families struggling with addiction.
For the example of Austin, if you in that community
The nearest grocery store is six miles away, and many families living in this community are without access to reliable transportation.
Around the country there are many Austins – small towns where the local grocery store has closed.
Food deserts, as each of you in this room know, aren't just in the city.
In small town and rural communities, we can't assume that there is a helping institution
around the corner.
So it will take innovation and best practices to close that gap.
To enable such innovation, Secretary Perdue has created a Rural Development Innovation Center
This is a team that will enable Rural Development to become a more forward-focused agency
that is primed to help local
leaders build new solutions to some of challenges and opportunities that they encounter.
The team will be led by an Innovation Officer, and will be hard-wired into USDA's structure -- with
a mission to identify best practices and bring continuous improvement in our program delivery.
They will be working directly with our agency administrators as well as the state directors that I talked about, the Innovation team will
be focused on crucial activities such as capacity building, best practice deployment, and leadership development.
Our goal is to respond faster and better to some of the new challenges that are in rural communities, to assist in facilitating prosperity in rural America.
Including prosperity for children who don't know where their next meal will come from.
So with that, I will close with a heartfelt THANK YOU
for what you do each day on the front lines of hunger in your community
and know that I am most excited about being a partner with you going forward
and finding new solutions to this important challenge.
Thank you.
[applause]
Thank you for joining us!
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