FRAC (Food Resource And Action Center) President Jim Weill, who wrote the foreword to USA Today’s Hunger in America supplement, shared in it a laundry list of troubling facts. Here’s just two – In 2008, 49 million people lived in households facing food-insecurity (according to USDA), and more than 16.7 million were children.

We quote from FRAC’s Press Release on the supplement, where Weill stated “[W]e know what works to solve hunger in America. The child nutrition programs (school breakfast and lunch, summer and afterschool programs, WIC, SNAP/Food Stamps) already are boosting the health, early development, and productivity of millions of Americans.”

The challenge, and tragedy, is that only two-thirds of those eligible actually receive SNAP/Food Stamps. Only 47 percent of eligible low-income children get school breakfast. And benefits in these programs often are not enough for purchasing healthy food. You can download/read the PDF of the USA Today supplement here.

Hunger in America was produced by Media Planet, a leading independent publisher of focused reports. You can check out their site, and some of their other efforts, here.