Ending Hunger By 2030

On this Page:

• The Vision
• The Roadmap
• Ending Hunger Corps VISTA

---

The Vision

We envision a Maine free from hunger. That is a Maine where everyone has the economic resources to secure consistent, easy access to enough healthy, culturally appropriate food for an active and healthy life.

We have defined the end of hunger as two consecutive years where no Mainers meet the USDA definition of experiencing very low food security, and just 4% of Mainers meet the USDA definition of experiencing low food security.

The Roadmap

In 2019, Maine’s 129th Legislature and Gov. Janet T. Mills committed the State to end hunger by 2030 and charged the Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry with developing a plan to get us there. “Everyone at the Table: Maine’s Roadmap to End Hunger by 2030” is that plan. Over 28 months of work, more than 200 Maine people participated in developing the roadmap. These people included legislators, nonprofit and business leaders, educators, researchers, economists, policy experts, and concerned Maine residents. Importantly, it included Mainers with lived and living experience of hunger who bravely shared intimate portraits of hunger as it’s faced each day and who shined a bright light on the solutions that can end this ongoing yet preventable emergency. The result is a roadmap rooted in:

• evidence-based solutions to hunger,
• the unique nature of the problem in Maine, and
• the priorities of Maine people.

Current levels of hunger and food insecurity—as high as 16.4% of the population in recent years—extract an enormous human toll. Each day thousands of our kids show up to school too hungry to learn, thousands of our workers are too economically insecure to thrive, and thousands of our neighbors are contending with entirely preventable ill health. This also translates into an economic toll Maine can ill afford. Today we spend or lose in excess of $1 billion annually when we treat the symptom of hunger when estimates suggest we could spend half that by eliminating hunger’s causes.

• Everyone at the Table: Maine's Plan to End Hunger by 2030 (PDF) - Updated September 1, 2022

Other important documents:

LD 1159 was the 2019 legislation that created Maine’s initiative to end hunger. Ending Hunger in Maine, a.k.a. the Interim Report, did much of the original research and provided the template for Everyone at the Table. In 2021, the organization Resources for Organizing and Social Change convened a group of stakeholders with lived experience of food insecurity to provide feedback on the Interim Report. The result was Impacted Community Recommendations & Review (PDF). And 2022’s LD 174 is the current legislation seeking to advance the work of ending hunger in Maine.

Featured Link

The statewide plan to end hunger and increase access to affordable, nutritious food for all Mainers on Maine Calling - Listen to a special episode of Maine Calling about Maine’s plan to end hunger. Learn about the plan, "Everyone at the Table," why it’s important, and how to get involved; including, Maine’s Ending Hunger Corps public service opportunities.

Ending Hunger Corps VISTA: Building Capacity to End Hunger in Maine by 2030

About

Ending Hunger Corps is an AmeriCorps VISTA program sponsored by Maine's Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Forestry (DACF), with the goal of building capacity to fulfill Maine’s historic commitment to creating a hunger-free state by 2030.

AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) is a national service program designed specifically to fight poverty, which provides full-time service members, for one-year terms, to nonprofit organizations and local agencies that serve low-income communities. VISTA service projects are focused on capacity-building activities like fundraising, community outreach, program development, and research, which expand the scale, impact, sustainability, and resource-leveraging ability of anti-poverty programs.

Ending Hunger Corps supports 25 VISTA projects a year, placing service members with organizations across the state that are doing work aligned with the goals of Everyone at the Table: Maine’s Roadmap to End Hunger by 2030. By working at the intersection of poverty and hunger, Ending Hunger Corps members advance long-term, root cause solutions.

Member Spotlights

Molly

Molly is our Equity & Community Impact VISTA at Good Shepherd Food Bank! Her service includes coordinating community outreach, conducting data collection, and organizing data dashboards and visuals. “As a history major, with a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies and Social Justice, I guided my studies to explore histories of those who experienced oppression. While learning of the past, I continually questioned how we might combat contemporary poverty and other injustices.”

Laura

This is Laura’s second year serving as an Ending Hunger Corps VISTA member at Good Shepherd Food Bank! Last year Laura’s focus was on volunteer recruitment, management, and engagement, while this year she will be developing a service-learning program to engage and empower youth.

“I’ve been able to combine my passion for working with youth and ending hunger through creating a service-learning program for Good Shepherd. I’m most excited to see how students come up with creative solutions to fight hunger within their communities!”

Change the World! Join us! +

Host an Ending Hunger Corps VISTA Project at Your Organization +

Questions?

Contact Kim Lengert, Ending Hunger Corps Program Manager, kim.lengert@maine.gov.