The Outreach Coalition of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is pleased to announce nominations are open for the 2012 Hunger Champions Award Program. This program honors local county assistance offices that provide exemplary service in assisting eligible clients to obtain benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It is the goal of the award program to recognize and support those local county assistance offices that make an enduring effort to embrace the mission of the SNAP.…“to increase food security and to reduce hunger by providing children and low income people with food, a healthy diet and nutrition education.”

Local county assistance offices with a unique and creative approach to serving their clients will be selected as the 2012 Hunger Champions. Awardees will be acknowledged at the 2012 State SNAP Directors conference. All Hunger Champions nominees will be recognized with a certificate noting their extra effort, commitment and passion for assuring that the SNAP participants have the nutrition assistance they need. In addition, all nominees will be listed as exemplary offices on the FNS web site at http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/outreach/.

The nomination process is simple. Any individual, agency or organization who has worked, observed or has personal experience with a local county assistance office that provides exemplary service to SNAP clients and/or applicants may nominate that office to be honored as a Hunger Champion. Nomination forms will be available on line at the web pages of SNAP Outreach http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/outreach/, WhyHunger www.whyhunger.org, and the Food Research and Action Center www.frac.org. All nominations for this year’s awards must be submitted with a justification of no more than one page by August 31, 2012.

The FNS Outreach Coalition is a national group of interested organizations and individuals that provide a forum for the sharing of outreach ideas, strategies, and resources in order to improve the accessibility of FNS nutrition assistance programs and raise awareness of these programs for eligible persons. The Coalition seeks to broaden community awareness of and improve support for FNS nutrition assistance programs, and is committed to improving its effectiveness through viable partnerships.

Questions concerning the Hunger Champions Award Program or the Outreach Coalition should be emailed to outreachcoalition@fns.usda.gov