Classic shot by Dorothea Lange, 1936.

As of October, the food stamp eligibility rules were broadened to include more needy families in anticipation of a worse economic downturn and increased need for families with children.

The new SNAP program, enacted through the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, has removed a portion of the assets test for eligibility, making families temporarily hammered by economic difficulties eligible for safety net benefits.

Some states, like Vermont, are going further:

The Vermont changes come on top of federal changes that took effect on Oct. 1. Last fall the federal government excluded tax-deferred retirement accounts – IRAs and 401(k)s – and tax-deferred educational accounts from the assets test. Vermont is making the asset exclusion even broader.

In January, Vermonters whose gross income is less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level "will not have anything counted, whether it's a savings account or an insurance settlement," said Reneé Richardson, director of Vermont's food and nutrition programs. The cap on the number of cars families can have has also been removed. Homes have previously been excluded.

"What we're doing is we are saying that if somebody has worked hard and they've been able to buy (things), and then all of a sudden they lose their job and they're in a situation where it's probably going to be temporary, we're not going to say, 'Well, before you can get any help from us, you've got to get rid of every single thing you own.' We're exempting everything else that the feds didn't exempt in October," Richardson said....

With legislative action forthcoming in the proposed stimulus bill as well as review and renewal of the child nutrition and WIC legislation, Congress has begun the hearing processes on this issue.

For the 55 percent of the 340 kids at the Rosewood neighborhood's A. C. Moore Elementary School who get free or reduced-price lunches — and 62.2 percent in all of the Richland 1 District — eating school meals is essential, Duff said. 

"They're dependent on it, to tell you the truth," she said. "Most children who get free and reduced (price) meals do not eat those meals at home."

Mariana Chilton, a children's-nutrition researcher at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said the number of children under 6 who sometimes are forced to go hungry has doubled in recent years to 8 percent of all youngsters.

"Senators, if you see child nutrition and health-care reform as one and the same, you will protect our youngest citizens from the ravages of the recession," Chilton said.

A public push on making this a priority could be incredibly effective right now, because this issue has a critical importance for so many at risk kids and it simply is not high on the radar screens for anyone but the Big Ag lobby (which places its unwanted commodities in the school lunch program) and nutrition and child advocacy groups who don't have nearly enough funding to competitively lobby on their side of things. I want to help amplify a better nutrition message, because it can pay all of us a huge dividend through the years.

The key is to make those school meal programs as healthy as possible. How? Some good ideas coming up soon.