Trump plan would cut grants that help the most vulnerable
MARYSVILLE — Volunteers gathered on Thursday morning at the Marysville Community Food Bank to pack food into shopping bags.
It was a fast moving assembly line with about 30 volunteers filling the bags with soup, tuna, peanut butter and other nonperishable foodstuffs. Later that day, several of the volunteers delivered the bags to local schools. On Friday, students took them home so they had enough to eat over the weekend.
“We found out in 2012 that there were children going home on the weekends without any food,” said Amy Howell, assistant director of the food bank and the manager of the bank’s Food for Thought backpack program.
The program initially was launched at one school, helping 25 kids, but quickly expanded to where it now serves about 400 children each week in 22 schools in the Marysville and Lakewood school districts.
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A big help in expanding the program was the award of a Community Development Block Grant. The first grant of about $3,000 came in 2012. That grew to $15,000 in 2016 and the Marysville City Council also approved $15,000 for the year, starting July 1.
“It was the first grant I’ve ever written and it was the first grant we received,” Howell said.
Community Development Block Grants are administered by local governments, but the money is federal: It’s a $3 billion entitlement program in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development intended to help local governments enhance housing, quality of life and economic opportunities, especially for low-income people.
The program also is under threat. Nestled among $54 billion in cuts the Trump administration wants to entitlement programs, the block grant program is one of several the president wants to eliminate entirely. Even a temporary federal government shutdown would cut off a funding to numerous local programs.
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