U.S. Urges Americans To Help Feed Their Neighbors

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday urged Americans to volunteer to help feed their neighbors, noting that almost 15 percent of the country's households had a hard time getting enough to eat last year.

Every American can chip in to fight hunger, the Agriculture Department said as it unveiled the Obama Administration's new Feed a Neighbor initiative, encouraging activities such as volunteering time at local food banks, helping the elderly get fresh produce, and planning ways to feed children who depend on free school lunches when school is out.

A USDA survey last week found one in seven Americans struggled to get enough to eat in 2008, the highest level since the report began in 1995.

More than 49 million people "had difficulty obtaining food...due to a lack of resources" during 2008, the report said. This includes 17 million children.

"It was a wake up call," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a conference call about the initiative, predicting the worst is yet to come.

"It's likely, given the recession, that the 2008/09 figures, which will be published next year, will paint an even more unsettling picture."

The USDA has created a "toolkit" of ideas to get people involved in helping their neighbors, available at www.serve.gov.

The USDA will spend $58.3 billion next year on food stamps to help poor people buy groceries, up from about $54 billion this year. It will spend $16.9 billion on school lunch and other feeding programs, up from $15 billion this year.

Vilsack said USDA wants to improve school lunch programs, and the government stimulus package has given more money to food stamps to help people hit by the recession.

"But the money is just part of it. It is important for people in communities across the country to understand that this is a problem in their community," he said.

The Obama administration has said it sees ending childhood hunger by 2015 as a top priority, Special Assistant to the President Joshua DuBois said.

Feeding America has been forced to turn people away from more than half of the more than 200 food banks in its network, said DuBois, who heads the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The Meals-on-Wheels program that provides food and company for the elderly needs a million more volunteers to clear its waiting list, DuBois said.

"This initiative piggybacks on the president's call to get more people involved in service and will help reverse the trend of increased hunger," DuBois said.