Summer Feeding Program: Las Vegas HUD Office Partners with USDA and State of Nevada

Seated - David Ewing, HUD, Multifamily Project Manager Left to right, Mary Cain, HUD Multifamily Project Manager, USDA representatives - Kara Brooks, Zara Shah & Linda Maloon - Culinary Training Academy; Karen Vogel- State of Nevada Food and Nutrition; Phyllis Hargrove, HUD Field Policy Management, Senior Management Analyst.

Las Vegas Field Office staff recently joined forces with representatives from Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the State of Nevada Food and Nutrition Division coordinator, Karen Vogel to expand the number of feeding sites for the USDA Summer Feeding Program.

The USDA and the State of Nevada held an outreach workshop in March 2014, to appeal to Las Vegas local governments, faith based organizations and non-profit organizations to help them feed more hungry children. Karen stated that over 100,000 children go hungry every night in Nevada.

Phyllis Hargrove, Senior Management Analyst, Field Policy Management, attended the workshop. She collaborated with Las Vegas Multifamily staff to coordinate using their properties as summer feeding sites.

The Culinary Training Academy in Las Vegas is the Summer Feeding Sponsor. They will receive reimbursement for meals delivered directly to the various feeding sites. Feeding sites are located throughout the Las Vegas valley. They range from churches, schools, community centers to apartment complexes.

The sites are open to all children under 18 in a low income neighborhood. The HUD properties selected as feeding sites were Pinewood Apartments and Cedar Village. There are hundreds of children in and around these apartment complexes. They started having access to one or more free freshly prepared meals in mid-June 2014.

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