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Food insecurity is a symptom of poverty. To help solve hunger, we advance nutrition assistance programs that support children and families, strengthen the social safety net, and correct the racial and social inequities that perpetuate hunger. Investments in food security must be secured alongside affordable housing, living wages, equitable access to health care, and robust education opportunities so that all our neighbors can live and thrive.
You can affect change. Add your voice to our grassroots advocacy community today.
Hunger is very much an election issue. This November, voters will pick candidates and vote on initiatives that will influence how we as a state and country respond to hunger. Learn more about our nonpartisan work to educate candidates and voters about hunger and important social, racial, and economic justice issues.
Hunger on the Ballot
We sent our Food Lifeline 2024 Candidate Questionnaire to every state and federal candidate asking for their positions on important hunger, poverty, social, and economic justice issues. Here are the responses we received.
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The Community Justice Alliance is made up of community members who have lived experience and could be the most impacted by our work. Their experiences and perspectives are powerful tools for building, disrupting, and clarifying a community’s understanding of its root causes and scope.
The invaluable expertise of these individuals adds strength and resiliency to poverty-reduction work and clarifies key priority issues to build an advocacy platform that engages policymakers to change the things that are the root causes of hunger and food insecurity.
Read Food Lifeline’s 2025 State Advocacy Agenda and Policy Overview.
“By joining our movement to end hunger, your support helps strengthen our voice in Olympia and Washington DC when lawmakers are considering important hunger and poverty issues.”
– Aaron Czyzewski, Director of Advocacy & Public Policy
We support legislation creating a pilot program for direct cash assistance to help Washington residents struggling under unprecedented income inequalities.
We support increasing funding for nutrition assistance and grant programs at Washington State Department of Agriculture.
We support policies and investments to encourage and support food donation practices in Washington, including efforts to achieve the state’s goal of a 50% reduction in wasted food by the year 2030.
We support measures to expand access to school meals at no student cost and improve access and availability of related school nutrition programs.
We support measures to improve food security among veteran and military households.
We supported improvements and expansion of Washington’s tax credit program for households with low and moderate incomes.
Hunger disproportionally impacts people who experience systemic racial and social injustice. These strong social determinants of hunger indicate clear opportunities to advance policies that remedy the inequitable and unjust systems. Food Lifeline will consider policy measures which focus on racial equity & social justice for vulnerable and low-income children, adults, and seniors, with emphasis on families of color, immigrant, and under-resourced communities.
Hunger is an expression of poverty. Poverty is the disproportionate allocation of resources which creates systemic injustices – inadequate financial resources, unaffordable and in accessible healthcare and housing, under-employment, and a scarcity of living wage occupations. Ending hunger is inseparably tied to ending the practices and standards that create poverty. Food Lifeline will consider measures that end conditions of poverty, especially concerning household stability, affordable housing, living wage employment, and related essential needs.
Consistent, equitable access to nutritious food depends on state, regional, and local food systems producing food that is sustainable, abundant, and responsive to
community needs. This requires an effective food policy environment for government, business, and agricultural interests and the workforces supporting them. Food Lifeline will consider measures that improve food justice, food systems resiliency, and operational capacity for hunger relief.
Steady access to affordable, nutritious, and desired foods both improve people’s health & wellbeing and make for healthier communities to live in. As such, nutrition is an essential complement to healthcare and lowering the cost of healthcare.
Food Lifeline will consider measures that positively impact the health of people experiencing hunger in community, educational, work, and healthcare settings.
Government nutrition assistance programs are a critical line of defense against hunger, yet current efforts do not always avert food insecurity alone or keep up with changing needs. Because of their scope and broad impact, they must be a top priority for additional funding and innovation.
Food Lifeline will prioritize measures that seek to fund and improve equity, access, adequacy, and participation across state and federal nutrition assistance resources.
Tax policy plays a key role in the level of economic justice and wellbeing that people experience. It also determines the level of funding available for community
investment. As such, it is important to advance tax code that creates the racial and economic justice necessary to end hunger.
Food Lifeline will consider measures that promote equity and fairness in Washington’s tax code and create more opportunity for community investment.
By Aaron Czyzewski
Director, Advocacy & Public Policy
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By Aaron Czyzewski
Director of Advocacy & Public Policy
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