[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 47 (Monday, November 27, 2000)]
[Pages 2919-2922]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Capital Area Food Bank and an Exchange With Reporters

November 22, 2000

    The President. First of all, I want to thank Secretary Glickman and 
all the people that he mentioned for the work that they've done that he 
discussed today. And I want to say a special word of appreciation to 
Lynn Brantley. Thank you for your kind comments, but actually, the 
District of Columbia could

[[Page 2920]]

better do without me than you. You have been great, and I thank you so 
much for everything you have done. This lady has been working on hunger 
issues since she marched with Dr. King. She's been at it a long time, 
and she's still a young lady. [Laughter] So she's got a long way to go, 
and we thank her.
    I want to thank the wonderful DC Delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, 
and DC City Council chair Linda Cropp and Vincent Orange, Ward 5 
councilmember. And I want to say a special word of appreciation--this 
may be my last public chance to do it--to Representative Tony Hall from 
Ohio, who, for years and years and years, when it was popular and when 
no one paid attention, has been the number one opponent of hunger in the 
United States and around the world in the entire United States Congress. 
Thank you, Tony Hall, for everything you have done. Thank you.
    I also want to point out that we have some participation here from 
one of my favorite accomplishments as President, the establishment of 
AmeriCorps, the national service corps. We have AmeriCorps volunteers, 
and I think we even have some alumni here. And I want to acknowledge 
Senator Harris Wofford, the director of the Corporation for National 
Service, and thank him for all that AmeriCorps has done, including this 
project and their participation here over the last 8 years. Thank you, 
sir.
    I also want to say appreciations, thanks to all the people that are 
working here who let me work with them. The folks in the back were 
tolerant when I couldn't remember what box I was supposed to put which 
item of food in. [Laughter] And the young people there were tolerant 
when I couldn't remember how many cans of what I was supposed to put in 
the box. And we got through it all right.
    The students are from Garfield Terrace. And I think as we prepare 
our own Thanksgivings, the people in our country should give thanks for 
people like all these volunteers here, young and old and those in the 
middle, who keep the spirit of Thanksgiving alive every day by giving to 
others. And I thank them. This is a great lesson for these young people 
to learn early in life, and I hope they'll keep it up. Let's give them a 
big hand. [Applause] Thank you.
    I always try to do some community service at Thanksgiving to 
highlight something good that's going on in our community, in our 
country. This year I wanted to come here because I think it's too easy 
for Americans to forget, when we have the strongest economy in our 
history and we've had the biggest drop in child poverty in 34 years and 
the lowest overall poverty rate in 20 years--that all sounds really 
good, and it is really good. It's good that we've got 22 million new 
jobs. It's good that all sectors of the economy have their incomes going 
up, from the lowest fifth to the top fifth and everybody in between. 
It's all really good. But this is a very big country, and it's very 
important at Thanksgiving that we not forget that in the midst of all of 
our plenty and all of our prosperity, there are still Americans of all 
ages who have trouble getting enough decent food to eat every single 
day. And a lot of Americans do not know that.
    I hope by coming here, one of the things that will happen--and 
Secretary Glickman mentioned it earlier--is that more Americans will be 
aware of this and will support this institution or their local food 
bank, wherever they live, or their local religious institutions or 
whoever else is involved in every community. There's somebody in every 
community trying to feed people that don't have enough food, and they 
need help in getting the food.
    And so that's the main reason I wanted to come here today. We see 
these people who don't have enough to eat sometimes living on the 
street. But we don't see them if they're senior citizens on very small 
fixed incomes. We don't see them sometimes if they're working families 
getting by on the minimum wage with more kids than can live on a minimum 
wage. By the way, it's another argument for raising the minimum wage. 
We've got one more chance to do that when the Congress comes back in 
December. And a shockingly high number of people who don't have enough 
to eat are kids.
    As Lynn said a moment ago--I want to reemphasize it because somebody 
might have missed what she said--one in three Washington, DC, children, 
the Capital of the country that has the strongest economy in

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the world, lives every single day at some risk of going to bed hungry. 
One in three in the Capital of the country with the best economy in the 
world, with the best economy we've ever had, is at risk of going to bed 
hungry at night.
    The Capital Area Food Bank helps to right that wrong by distributing 
20 million pounds of food a year to community kitchens, children's 
programs, and other emergency feeding centers. How many people--did you 
say you had over 750 groups that come here to get food? Around the 
Nation, a network of private organizations, religious groups, and civic-
minded individuals are doing the same thing, just like our friends from 
Giant Food here are helping.
    Now, this commitment, this grassroots citizens commitment to 
fighting hunger, is a great national treasure for us. The challenge for 
people like us in Government is to find ways to work with community 
groups and businesses and farmers to end hunger in America, and not just 
on Thanksgiving or Christmas but every day. And we need citizen help 
there, as well.
    Secretary Glickman talked about our community food security 
initiative and the progress we've made, and I really thank him for his 
personal leadership and commitment. Soon after I named him Agriculture 
Secretary, Dan told me about a program he'd started in his home State in 
Kansas to collect food that would otherwise be wasted and pass it on. He 
told me then, and he just whispered in my ear again today, one of his--
he wants to make sure I remember this, so he said it again--that our 
country loses about 96 billion--that's ``b,'' not million, billion--
pounds of food a year that could be consumed, but instead it's thrown 
out or allowed to spoil. So we established a program that allows Federal 
agencies to send excess food to food banks like this one. In 10 agencies 
and the United States House of Representatives--thank you, Tony and 
Eleanor--and several local military bases are now taking part in this.
    But now we've got to meet the longer term challenge, to make sure 
low-income Americans and seniors get the food at affordable prices they 
need in the neighborhoods where they live. This is a real problem for 
people in inner cities and in rural areas, where more than 20 percent of 
the stores carry no fresh produce at all, or there simply aren't any 
stores at all. It's a tragedy for children who especially need vitamins 
when they're growing up and for older people who need fruits and 
vegetables to fight diseases like diabetes and hypertension.
    So today I'm going to announce three new initiatives that will at 
least help to change that and will help America's small farmers find new 
markets for their produce.
    First, we're going to make available $10 million in grants to help 
seniors take advantage of farmers markets. There are farmers markets all 
over this country that offer good produce at affordable prices, but you 
can't take food stamps to them. And so we've asked the States and the 
Indian tribal governments to apply to the Department of Agriculture by 
December the 1st to use the funding to create coupons that will allow as 
many as a half-million seniors on limited incomes to shop directly at 
farmers markets or buy from local farms directly. And when seniors and 
low-income people are able to purchase fresh local produce, their health 
improves and so does the health of the local farm economy.
    Capital City Food Bank has demonstrated that here by starting the 
Anacostia farmers market, which I imagine a lot of you are familiar 
with, and bringing local growers to Southeast, DC, as well as being one 
of only four farmers markets in the Nation to accept food stamps. That's 
why we've got to do this coupon thing, because most of them don't.
    Second, the Department of Agriculture will spend $200 million more 
next year to buy fruits and vegetables and donate them to community 
kitchens, schools, and other emergency feeding centers. That means 
millions more healthy snacks in senior centers, fresh vegetables in 
school lunches, and full shelves at the Capital City Food Bank and 
others like it across our country.
    Third, we're going to spend about $2\1/2\ million in new community 
food project grants to 16 nonprofits in 13 States to help build 
community gardens at public schools and in vacant lots. They'll then 
fund training in gardening, nutrition, and food preparation

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for young people to help create farmers markets in underserved areas, by 
using land that's out there in communities and towns now to let people 
grow some food that can either be consumed or sold.
    Now, all these initiatives are good for our seniors, our working 
families, our kids, and our farmers. They will build a direct connection 
between people who grow food and people who need it. They will take 
another step toward ensuring that, in this land of plenty, no child--no 
American--should go to bed hungry.
    That ought to be a national goal. It ought to transcend political 
parties, race, age, and region. But there are people in cities and 
little country towns, on Indian reservations, who are hungry. And I will 
say again: If we--I know I have said this so many times about so many of 
our problems, but if you take this problem--if we cannot deal with this 
now, when we have the strongest economy in our history, the lowest 
unemployment rate in 30 years, the highest work force participation in 
our history, and at least a manageable number of people struggling with 
this, when are we ever going to deal with it?
    So, at this Thanksgiving, we should all be thankful for our 
blessings. We should all look around at people who need help and try to 
give them a little. But we ought to make a commitment to deal with this 
systematically. If Lynn can spend a lifetime dealing with this, the rest 
of us ought to spend a year fixing it so that she'll have the resources 
she needs to actually meet the problem that's out there. I hope these 
steps will help. I'm sure they will, but there's more to be done.
    Thank you, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Dick Cheney

    Q.  Any thoughts on Secretary Cheney?
    The President. Just that I hope he'll be well and fine. I just found 
out right before I came over here, and I'm going to go back to the White 
House now to either call him or write him a note. I hope he's fine.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:22 p.m. at the food bank's warehouse. In 
his remarks, he referred to Lynn Brantley, executive director, Capital 
Area Food Bank.