Food & Nutrition [Volume 19, Number 1-2]

              Spring-Summer 1989 Volume 1o/, Numbers 1 and 2 University of fJorlh Carolina
Oepos\toi'Y . <::t Gresnsboro
We've Come A Long
Way In 20 Years
2
A Message From
Secretary Yeutter
Food and Nutrition
We've Come A Long
Way In 20 Years
In the 1960's, American farmers­only
5 percent of the population-were
producing food enough to feed the
nation and to help teed the world. Yet
there was a shadow over this
agricultural bounty. Too many
Americans could not afford to buy the
food they needed for a healthful and
adequate diet.
When a series of events placed
hunger squarely before the American
conscience, the federal government
responded with significant changes in
its food assistance policies. One of the
first of those actions was creating the
Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in
1969.
Only a separate USDA agency, it
was felt, could give the focus and
emphasis required to end hunger. And,
in fact, FNS programs have proved to
be among the most durable and
successful of anti-poverty initiatives.
Under FNS administration, the Food
Stamp and National School Lunch
Programs have expanded to reach
millions of low-income Americans.
They've also been augmented with
Spring-Summer 1989
new forms of assistance tailored to the
needs of specific groups, such as
women and infants, elderly people, and
needy children not served by school
nutrition programs.
In 1969, the federal cost of food aid
to Americans totaled $1.1 billion; last
year, FNS spending on food assistance
programs for needy Americans was
$20 billion, approximately 40 percent of
the total USDA budget.
Meanwhile, the specialized network
of federal, state, and local offices that
manage these operations has grown
more efficient, equipped with
sophisticated technology to support
today's high standards of accuracy and
integrity.
From its headquarters in Alexandria,
Virginia, FNS now operates through
seven regional offices throughout the
United States. In addition, 65 field
offices and 35 satellite offices foster
the close local-level relationships that
have been a hallmark-together with a
commitment to people-of the food
assistance programs.
Today, the programs functipn with
the cooperation of one or more
government agencies in each state,
233,000 retailers, more than 20,000
school food authorities, and over
10,000 financial institutions. Yet, the
FNS staff that manages this complex
Since FNS was set up in 1969,
millions of Americans have
benefited from the special help
the food assistance programs
provide.
3
network has grown modestly-from the
1 ,200 employees on board when the
agency was launched to less than
2,000 today. . ..
USDA Mobilizes
Against Hunger
President Richard M. Nixon
announced the formation of FNS in a
message to Congress that ended with
this phrase: "It is a moment to act with
vigor; it is a moment to be recalled with
pride."
Twenty years later, we know these
words to be prophetic. In this issue of
Food and Nutrition magazine, we
recall with pride the day-to-day work
and decisions that strengthened and
expanded food aid until it reached into
every corner of our nation.
While we mention some outs.tand­ing
individual contributions, we
necessarily omit others of equal
importance. Our purpose is to paint a
broad picture of teamwork, rather than
call the roster of all participants.
But the story would be incomplete
without reference to the special climate
of determination and urgency in which
the agency assumed its mission.
In 1969, many voices and reports
swelled the public dossier on the impact
of hunger on the lives and hopes of
poor Americans.
The extent of hunger and malnutrition
was verified by teams of physicians in
research sponsored by the privately
financed Field Foundation. It was
further documented by members of
Congress, who traveled into areas of
poverty to see the situation for
themselves.
The public demanded not only a
more effective bridge between surplus
food and needy people, but a system
that would end poverty-based hunger in
America.
In the late 1960's, the Food Stamp
Program was still a relatively small
operation. While it had grown from the
pilot projects established by President
John F. Kennedy in 1961 and was
authorized on a permanent, national
basis by the Food Stamp Act of 1964,
many counties did not choose to
participate. Appropriations were small,
and direct distribution of federal
commodities remained the primary
source of food aid. Moreover, many
counties did not participate in either
4
'' ... a moment to
act with vigor ... "
"The Administration had pledged to give every
American, no matter where he or she lived,
access to food assistance. Like a team racing
for a pennant, we scored each time we brought
on board a county not previously served
by our food programs."
program, and there was no single,
national standard of eligibility.
Congress, which formerly had meted
out funds sparingly for food
assistance, now demanded something
in the nature of a crusade. A small
group of food assistance specialists in
USDA's Consumer and Marketing
Service (CMS) found themselves in a
spotlight of publicity and were
transformed, practically overnight, into
hunger fighters.
Fortunately, the initial gradual
growth in the Food Stamp Program
had allowed USDA time to develop an
administrative structure and working
relationships with the states that would
make a national program feasible.
A key architect in FNS' response to
the challenge was Richard Lyng, then
newly appointed Assistant Secretary
for Consumer and Marketing Services,
and recently Secretary of Agriculture
during the Reagan Administration.
"When Dick Lyng was named to
oversee USDA's food assistance
functions, he hit the ground running,''
says Phil Fleming, who served as FNS'
first public information director. "The
Administration had pledged to give
every American, no matter where he or
she lived, access to food assistance.
Like a team racing for a pennant, we
scored each time we brought on board
a county not previously served by our
food programs."
Isabelle Kelley, who headed the
overall food stamp operation, agrees
on the sense of urgency.
"The night before the President's
hunger message went to Congress,"
she says, "Hod Davis and I were called
to Assistant Secretary Lyng's office at
5 o'clock." (Howard Davis was deputy
administrator for food programs).
"There we met three young men from
the White House whose task was to
write, that night, a message that would
provide direction to the national
consensus to end hunger."
The rest is history. The existence of
the Food and Nutrition Service as a
separate agency made two clear
statements:
• First, the size and scope of food
programs required and justified the full
attention of an administrator; and
• Second, although food assistance
efforts would continue to serve both
agricultural and welfare purposes, the
emphasis would shift from primarily
agricultural purposes to serving the
food needs of poor people.
iJFood stamps were perceived as a blend of free
enterprise and welfare. To grocers, we emphasized
that providing assistance through 'normal
channels of trade' gave their customers
more buying power."
In the late 1960's, many counties had
not yet joined the Food Stamp Pro­gram.
One of FNS' earliest goals was
enlisting more counties and expanding
the program nationwide. ...
5
President Richard M. Nixon announced the formation
of FNS in a message to Congress that ended with this
phrase: "It is a moment to act with vigor; it is a
moment to be recalled with pride."
Twenty years later, we know these words to be
prophetic. In this issue of Food and Nutrition magazine,
we recall with pride the day-to-day work and
decisions that strengthened and expanded food aid
until it reached into every corner of our nation.
6
"Malnourishment is a national concern
because we are a nation that cares
about its people," President Richard M.
Nixon said in his opening remarks at
the 1969 White House Conference on
Food, Nutrition, and Health.
In less than a year, the Food Stamp
Program surged from participation of
3.6 million people in December 1969 to
9.3 million in November 1970-and
continued climbing. Today, in the
course of a year, this family food
assistance program provides benefits
to one in seven Americans. Current
average monthly participation is more
than 19 million.
A Landmark
Conference
Another important outcome of the
1969 hunger message was the White
House Conference on Food, Nutrition,
and Health, which was held in
December of that year.
"A few skeptics dismissed the
conference as no more than a public
relations gimmick, but they were
wrong,'' recalls Phil Fleming. "Dr. Jean
Mayer, the Harvard professor of
nutrition who was appointed to
organize and chair the conference,
brought not only management skills
and professional knowledge, but a flair
for publicity that helped make the
conference front-page news
nationwide.
"But the true strength of the event
came from the 3,000 people­nutritionists,
activists, advocates, and
others-who were invited to
participate. Like a New England town
meeting, it was democracy at its finest.
"They were determined the
conference would not be just another
forum that leaves nothing behind but
volumes of unreadable reports. The
recommendations of the conference
were to be blueprints for action.
"In fact, Food and Nutrition
magazine was conceived as a
continuing channel of communication
with conference participants. It was
designed to report on progress in
achieving the goals set by the
conference, and be a vehicle for
sharing new ideas and developments in
the field."
Food and Nutrition
Taking Programs
To the People
Little wonder memories of the early
days remain vivid. There was the
challenge of a new mission, a high level
of support within the federal
government, the freedom to innovate,
and the satisfaction of seeing
achievements overnight.
The agency's first administrator­Edward
J. Hekman-brought the right
mix of energy and salesmanship to the
task of securing the support of local
governments and communities.
According to Jim Springfield, who
directed the new agency's food stamp
operation, the nature of the program
gave it wide appeal. This was crucial,
since the cooperation of grocers was
vital to expanding food stamp
assistance.
"Food stamps were perceived as a
blend of free enterprise and welfare ;'
Springfield says. "To grocers, we
emphasized that providing assistance
through 'normal channels of trade'
gave their customers more buying
power:'
Spring-Summer 1989
Edward J. Hekman (pictured at left dur­ing
a visit to a Chicago elementary
school) was FNS' first administrator.
The "cup-can" lunch (right) was an in­novative
way to serve meals in schools
without cafeterias.
Soon Congressmen were vying to
announce the extension of food stamp
aid to new counties in their districts and
keeping the fairness of the selection
process under close scrutiny.
Along with rapid program growth
went a freewheeling spirit of problem­solving.
Jerry Stein, a food program
specialist then and now, recalls
working with grocers in the "Hatfield
and McCoy country" of Kentucky and
West Virginia in the earliest days of the
Food Stamp Program.
While monitoring store compliance in
these mountain hollows, he discovered
that the private food chain could be
very different from the state and local
government network being used to
distribute donated food.
When Stein asked to see the
accounting system of a small store, the
owner-who didn't read or write­gestured
toward two boxes.
"Whenever I pay money out;' he said,
"I jot it down on a piece of brown paper
and throw it in that box. When
someone pays me, I mark that on a
white piece and throw it in the other.
You 're welcome to dig through."
While rules made in Washington
were sometimes confounded by such
circumstances, the programs
themselves were frequently enriched
by local improvisation.
Nowhere was this more evident than
in FNS' drive to extend lunch programs
to every school and make free or
reduced-price meals available to all
needy children.
"There were one-room schools in the
Appalachian region that had no
equipment other than a potbelly stove
they used for heat," Stein says. "But
people just rallied around the way they
do for a barn raising. Without any cash,
they'd find what they needed in the
community."
An approach widely used in both
rural and inner-city low-income schools
was the "cup-can" system. Schools
needed only a portable oven to offer a
hot main dish. Children ate an entree
from individual serving-sized cans
which, when heated and supplemented
with cold foods, niet the USDA meal
standard.
7
Twenty Years
Of Change ...
With automation just around the
corner, FNS bookkeeping never had
such elegant simplicity as the brown
paper/white paper box system.
Nevertheless, in the early years,
decision-making was not as "codified"
as it is today, and it sometimes owed
more to individual judgment than to
formal procedures.
Nor did such decisions always go
unchallenged. A series of lawsuits­some
argued before the U.S. Supreme
Court-were instrumental in shaping
both the programs and agency
management.
"When I came on board, all the
program regulations fit on a single
page," marvels Isabelle Kelley.
Regulations grew longer and more
complex as the agency had to answer
to public satisfaction such questions as
what, in a world of rapidly changing
family units, should constitute a
household.
Along with the constraints of public
scrutiny came the benefits of public
input. The Food Stamp Program that
emerged after vigorous public debate is
more responsive not only to the
persons it serves but to the state and
local officials who administer it.
Here are some of the landmark
developments in policy under FNS'
administration, for the Food Stamp
Program as well as for other major
programs.
• By 1970, uniform national
eligibility standards had been
established for the Food Stamp
Program, and for free and reduced­price
school lunches.
• Also important to child nutrition
was a change made in allocating
federal funds. Beginning in 1971,
funds were provided based on
"performance funding:· This meant that
reimbursement was paid to school
districts on a per meal basis. Additional
funding for meals served to
needy children was based on actual
service. Previously, this additional sup­port
went only to schools designated
as being needy.
Currently, 90,000 schools participate
in the National School Lunch Program,
and benefits are closely targeted to
need. The number of free and
reduced-price meals has risen from 15
8
In 1969, the federal cost of food aid to Americans
totaled $1.1 billion; last year, FNS spending on food
assistance programs for needy Americans was
$20 billion, approximately 40 percent of the total
USDA budget.
percent of the total meals served in
1969 to over 48 percent today.
• In another early development, the
Special Food Service Program for
Children-a pilot project when the
agency was formed-was split into the
Summer Food Service Program and
the Child Care Food Program. Both
programs were designed to provide
nutritious meals and snacks to low­income
children in settings other than
schools-such as residential
institutions, day care homes and
centers, summer camps, and
neighborhood playgrounds.
• In 1972, the Special Supplemental
Food Program for Women, Infants, and
Children (WIG) was authorized as a
pilot project. The first WIG site opened
in Pineville, Kentucky, in 1974. In the
same year, the Food Stamp Program
was mandated nationally.
• From 1977 on, people were no
longer required to purchase part of
their food stamp allotments. This
opened the program to many of the
country's neediest people.
The same year saw changes in the
school lunch meal patterns, giving food
service workers added flexibility in
pleasing a new generation of children
with distinct eating habits.
• In another innovation reflecting
the "food and fitness" concerns that
were building in the 1970's, federal
funds became available to support
state nutrition education activities for
children , parents, teachers, and food
service workers in child nutrition
programs. At the same time, the
national dietary guidelines became a
model for improving the quality of
school lunches.
• In 1981, President Reagan di­rected
the distribution of surplus
cheese to low-income households.
Subsequently, Congress passed the
Temporary Emergency Food Assist­ance
Act to continue and expand food
donations and to help states meet the
costs of administering the program.
Since its inception, this program has
distributed more than 5 billion pounds
of surplus food to needy households,
greatly reducing stockpiles and
storage costs.
• Significant reforms designed to
improve management and increase
efficiency were introduced in the early
1980's, as the federal government
sought to reduce the budget deficit.
Benefits were targeted to the most
needy; eligibility standards were
tightened; and accountability was
strengthened.
The Food Stamp Program, through
its Make Your Food Dollars Count
campaign, prepared and distributed
informational materials to help low­income
families stretch their dollars
and improve their family's nutrition.
• As the era of budget austerity con­tinued,
new actions were taken tore­duce
waste, abuse, and errors.
Advanced technology and better man­agement
were reflected in the Food
Stamp Program with the addition of
photo identification cards, com­puterized
recordkeeping, checking of
application information against wage
records, and other techniques.
Also, Congress mandated a food
stamp quality control system with
penalties for states where error rates
exceed established ceilings.
• In 1985, Congress amended the
Food Stamp Program to require states
to establish employment and training
programs for recipients. The emphasis
on work mirrored a national move to
reduce welfare dependency that would
culminate in a major reform of public
assistance in 1988.
• Another important current trend is
the revamping of the commodity
distribution system. While a primary
purpose remains to remove surplus
food from the farm marketplace, the
commodity program now responds
more fully to user needs in packaging,
delivery, communication, and in the
quality and variety of the food it
provides.
Food and Nutrition
FNS food assistance programs have
reached into every corner of our nation,
serving communities as diverse as
Waynesboro, Virginia, (above) and San
Francisco's Chinatown (below).
Conclusion
Thanks to FNS' tenacious 20 years
of food aid activities, progress has
been made. Millions of lives have been
enhanced, and billions of dollars saved
that might have been lost to diet­related
illness.
Changes in the social and economic
climate continue to influence the
agency's priorities. And this is not
surprising. What is remarkable is the
constancy-and the success-with
which the Food and Nutrition Service
and its partners in state and local
agencies have pursued their basic
mission of ensuring a healthful diet for
all Americans.
article by Wini Scheffler
Spring-Summer 1989 9
A Look At The Early
Days In The Southeast
he Food and Nutrition Service's
Southeast region has been a fertile
area to test pilot programs and
discover talented employees. The
result has been the expansion of a
number of regional projects to national
programs and a steady flow of
individuals from the Atlanta office to
key positions in Washington and other
regions.
The entire South was undergoing a
tremendous social and economic
upheaval in the early 1960's when FNS
was just coming into its own. As racial
integration was changing the social
fabric of the region, mechanization was
altering economic patterns in large and
small communities alike. Mass
unemployment occurred in many towns
as new interstate highway systems
bypassed them.
The area also felt the impact of
events in other areas-for example,
large numbers of Hispanics began to
have a cultural impact as thousands of
Cubans sought refuge in southern
states.
Arvid Dopson, deputy administrator
of FNS' Southeast region and senior
FNS employee in the region, says,
"We've seen a lot of changes over the
past 25 to 30 years, and we've learned
a lot about what works and what
doesn't work. I feel we've made a lot of
progress in opening up a variety of
federal feeding programs to a large
segment of the needy population."
Helped with early
food stamp program
Dopson joined FNS' predecessor
agency, the Agricultural Marketing
Service, in 1959. One of his fi.rst
assignments was to manage the
opening of a pilot food stamp program
in Floyd County, Kentucky. Floyd was
one of eight counties targeted
nationally to test the program. Nearly
all of the counties were located in the
10
country's hard-hit mining areas.
"We were looking at high rates of
unemployment throughout the mining
industry," Dopson says. "In many
instances, there wasn't any other
employment available to people in
those areas and they were destitute:·
According to Dopson, the cultural
attitudes of many Southerners toward
any type of public assistance was what
made establishing feeding programs
so challenging.
"By the late '60s, we were charged
with establishing a feeding program­food
stamp or commodity distri­bution-
in every county in the region;'
he says.
"Yet, the social mores we were up
against ranged from the staunch
refusal of many independent mountain
Floyd County, Kentucky, was one of the
counties selected to test the pilot Food
Stamp Program in the early 1960's.
This photo from 1964 shows a woman
receiving her family's food stamps.
people to utilize food help no matter
how dire their situation, to the routine
practice in many counties of removing
families on AFDC from any assistance
during tobacco-stripping or cotton­picking
season, to outright racial
prejudice. I guess you could say those
were interesting times."
Being in on the beginning of a
program has its pluses and frequently
provides opportunities for employees to
make tangible contributions. In
Food and Nutrition
i m .,._. i ll ff
•{•r•••• •••f••{ • ••• f \\\ \\tttttt•• ••ttt {t•• •r••tttt • • ·~~~::~~·::::••::: ~::::••::,::~·\,~ ,.;.
Dopson's case, he was called in to
participate at meetings in Washington
and other areas of the country as the
Food Stamp Program was being
formulated.
"This was especially valuable as the
program began to expand in our
region;' he says. "It also helped when I
was called into Washington and given
the task of assisting in developing the
first basic issuance schedule for the
Food Stamp Program."
Social changes added
special challenges
Developing issuance schedules and
timetables for setting up a food stamp
or commodity distribution program was
easy compared to convincing opposing
factions in various counties that all of
their residents had a right to receive
food assistance if needed, according
to Dopson.
"Many areas of the South were going
through social and economic turmoil;'
Dopson says. "Up until the early '60s,
tenant farming prevailed. Large
Spring-Summer 1989
landowners had scores of tenant
farmers who exchanged hand labor for
free housing, a little cash , and a
garden patch.
"However, as tractors began to
replace mules and cotton harvesters
began to replace extensive hand labor,
landowners found themselves with little
need for the large number of tenant
farmers they were supporting. And the
tenant farmers, many of whom were
illiterate, found themselves with no
skills to exchange for their free housing
and garden plot.
"In general, on the larger farms, the
best workers were taught to drive and
maintain the tractors. The rest had no
work but were allowed to continue
living in the tenant housing. Eventually,
the majority of this housing was torn
down or utilized for other purposes. As
could be expected, this resulted in a
growing number of unemployed,
homeless farm families, and
resentment was high on both sides."
In the middle of this economic crisis,
federal courts determined that
Southeast was in Nash County, North
Carolina. This couple and their sons
were some of the first people to be
helped through the program.
"separate but equal" did not meet the
intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1954.
Then, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was
passed. The result was social
upheaval in the workplace, in schools,
and on the homefront.
Dopson recalls an incident in
western Tennessee that required all
the skill he could muster to convince
local politicians and county leaders that
setting up a feeding program for the
poor was in the best interest of
everybody-not to mention that it was
the humane thing to do.
"We had a situation erupt that had
racial, political, and economic
overtones," he says. "Farmers in the
area had almost unanimously kicked
the tenant farmers off their property,
and the result was a series of 'tent
cities' for the unemployed and
homeless. When we set up a food
... 11
As mechanization replaced hand labor,
many tenant farmers and their families
(right) wwe left homeless. When FNS
staff tried to set up food programs to
help (below), they sometimes met with
resistance and needed support from lo­cal
law enforcement officials.
distribution program in two of these
counties, feelings toward us were
hostile.
"I remember once when one of our
staff from Atlanta, who was in charge
of setting up these programs, was
talking on the phone with us and
suddenly said he had to go because
someone had just come into his office
and was threatening him with a pistol."
Handling recipient complaints was
another area Dopson describes as
requiring steel nerves. "We frequently
met in churches where people would
bring in their complaints about being
discriminated from receiving federal
food assistance. Some of these
complaints were legitimate, some
weren't. But, regardless, the whole
time you were there, you were aware
that churches were being burned and
bombed, and that people were even
being shot."
12
Dopson notes that racism wasn't
practiced by everyone or progress
couldn't have been made. "A number of
leaders from both races were working
together and with us to set up
programs to help needy citizens in
their counties regardless of race or
creed.
"In fact, I know of one situation in
Clarksdale, Mississippi, where
members of the community-black and
white-took turns guarding the home
of Aaron Henry, the state NAACP
director, after his first home had been
damaged. I found this out when I went
to visit Aaron at his home and was met
at the door by a man armed with a
shotgun:·
Developing a trusting relationship
with the leaders of groups FNS was
trying to reach was the key to making
any headway during those hectic times,
Dopson says.
"I had a simple formula for working
with Aaron Henry and everybody else,"
he says. "If someone was being treated
unfairly, we would correct it. I
guaranteed it. But, it was up to that
person to give us the correct
information. They had to provide
tangible proof that a person was or
wasn't being treated unfairly:'
Much talent and many
ideas from Southeast
Working in such a challenging
climate had a lot of professional
rewards, according to Dopson, but one
of the best was working with many
talented individuals who began their
FNS careers in the Southeast region.
To name just a few: Herb Rorex
became national school lunch director;
Jim Hutchins and Neil Freeman,
national food distribution directors;
Vernon Morgan, director of personnel
and later of regional operations; Jim
Greer, deputy food distribution '
director; Gene Dickey, Southwest
regional administrator; Hicks Elmore,
Food and Nutrition
Western regional administrator; and
Jack Boozer, deputy administrator for
the Western region.
Andy Hornsby, who currently serves
as Alabama's welfare commissioner,
was previously regional administrator
for the Mid-Atlantic region (MARO).
"Obviously, most of these individuals
already had a lot go· g for them,"
Dopson says. "But the political,
economic, and cultural climate in the
Southeast during this time enabled
them to explore and expand their
natural talents:·
Dopson notes that several pilot
projects begun in the Southeast by
FNS, or through state agencies
working with FNS, have been
expanded nationally.
"A nutrition education program
piloted in Mississippi for families on
USDA's food stamp or commodity
distribution programs became so
successful that it eventually was
removed from FNS and became a
multi-million dollar educational
program in USDA's Extension Service;·
he says.
Another program begun in the
Southeast and expanded nationally
was a supplemental food program for
pregnant and nursing mothers, infants,
and small children (the precursor to the
WIC program), which was piloted in
Greensboro, North Carolina; Nashville;
and Memphis. The initial program was
so highly regarded that St. Jude's
Children's Research Hospital
participated with USDA in the research
phase of this program.
Mississippi was the first state to
institute statewide cost containment on
foods distributed in its WIC program by
negotiating prices directly with
vendors. Tennessee was one of the
first states to adapt this cost­containment
approach to the retail level
through a vendor rebate program.
"Over the years, FNS' role in food
assistance programs has changed
from a hands-on operation to more of a
management/review operation,"
Dopson says. "But, overall, I don't think
the agency has ever lost sight of its
mission to provide food help to those
who can't provide for themselves.
"I get a lot of personal satisfaction
from knowing that I, through FNS' food
assistance programs, have made a
positive difference in the lives of
others."
article by Connie Crunkleton
Spring-Summer 1989
Reaching
Children:
An Interview With
Gene Dickey
0 ne of the people who has worked
with FNS at many levels is Southwest
regional administrator Gene Dickey.
He is recognized nationally as an
innovative program manager and food
assistance policy expert. During his
career, he has not only been honored
with several awards from the agency
and the Department, but has also
twice, in 1983 and 1988, received the
Presidential Rank Award for
Meritorious Executive-one of the
most prestigious awards a member of
the federal senior executive service
can earn.
Dickey started in the school lunch
program with FNS' forerunner
(Consumer and Marketing Service) in
1967 in the Atlanta regional office. He
went on to headquarters where he
served in a variety of key positions.
He left federal service for a while to
work with child nutrition in North
Carolina, but returned to FNS in
November 1980 to become
administrator of the Southwest region.
During his 9 years in the Southwest, he
has also had special assignments in
Washington, serving, at different times,
as acting administrator and as acting
associate administrator of the agency.
13
..
In the late 1960's, there were many
schools, like this one-room school in
Knox County, Kentucky (left), that did
not have lunchroom facilities. Many of
today's schools (right) have sophisti­cated
fpod services.
Having been involved in federal
food assistance in progressively
responsible positions for over 20 years,
Dickey has a deep interest in and
insight into the development of the
various programs. In the following
interview, he describes how programs
have evolved in response to what was
needed-and what society wanted-at
that time.
~ When you came to FNS in
~ 1967, federal food assistance
was structured quite differently
from today. What were the major
food programs?
~The principal child nutrition
f&!:J programs were school lunch,
school breakfast, an equipment
program to help schools get necessary
food service equipment, and a very
large special milk program. Since the
14
Food Stamp Program was just getting
started, the principal family food
assistance program was food
distribution.
My first job with FNS involved
working with private schools in the
Southeast. One of my responsibilities
was to handle school lunch
reimbursement claims. Of course, we
didn't have automation then, so we had
our own ledgers and, after we received
the claims, we manually paid them.
~ What was the social climate ~ of our country at that time?
~The issues of human rights,
!&!3 poverty, and malnutrition were
just emerging. They were not full­blown,
but the nation was beginning to
focus on them.
In 1968, a team of doctors from the
Field Foundation shocked the nation
with their report of widespread hunger
in America. It had been the doctors'
goal to document malnutrition, and they
did. The result was an outpouring of
public sentiment and support.
People from every political,
economic, and social level began to
focus on the problem. There was a
White House conference on the
subject, and Congress and the
Administration worked together on
legislation needed to authorize and
fund programs.
One outgrowth was the
establishment of FNS. Another was
President Nixon's pledge to provide
free or reduced-price meals for every
needy school child.
Before 1969, the philosophy of the
law was that free meals should be
given to economically deprived
children; however, there was no federal
mandate nor federal funds provided to
do so. There were also no standard
criteria as to what constituted poverty.
It was left to local officials to help
children in their schools. What was
done was based on their good will,
their sense of responsibility, and their
ability to fund what they thought was
needed.
So, the President's pledge presented
a real challenge. There were many
Food and Nutrition
schools without lunch programs, there
were no federal funds, and no eligibility
standards. When Public Law 91-248
was passed, all of that changed.
IP:t Seeing to it that lunch was
~available to every needy
child in school appears to have
been a big job. Didn't you run into
some problems?
_,..Yes, it was a tremendous
!&!2 undertaking because of two
obstacles. One was the structure of
school systems and school facilities.
Another was resistance to federal aid.
Back then, we had not had the benefit
of the school consolidation efforts of
the last 20 years. There were many
one- and two-room schools throughout
the country, and often, even in larger
schools, there were no cafeteria
facilities.
We had huge communities that had
been structured in the 1800's and the
early 1900's for children to come home
for lunch-but society and economics
had changed, and now there was no
one for them to come home to. Since
these schools had been designed
Spring-Summer 1989
without food service and often didn't
even have a common room to use, we
had to be innovative and get food
satellited in or provide bag lunches.
The other obstacle we were up
against was a feeling that accepting
government help was somehow
inconsistent with being responsible for
one's own family. With money and
resources, it was fairly easy for us to
accomplish our goal in some regions of
the country. In other areas, though, it
was difficult because of fear of
government interference.
It was fiercely debated where lines
should be drawn between government
help and family responsibility, and, in
fact, it still is. You have to understand
that when we tried to help school
districts provide food service to their
students, we were dealing with the very
fiber of what those communities were
about-with their beliefs of parental
responsibility.
P1't I have heard you mention a
~project called "Operation
Metropolitan:• Just what was that
effort?
111111 We went into the cities and
!&!3 assessed the circumstances
there in terms of numbers of children in
the community, numbers of children in
school, numbers of children being
reached by food service, and numbers
of children without food service.
We then compared these data to
poverty levels to get an idea of unmet
need. From the data, we developed
standard eligibility criteria, even
though we did not yet have legislation
establishing it.
-~ And then came Public Law
~ 91-248. What did it do?
..... P. L. 91-248 authorized state
!&!~administrative expense funds to
operate the programs. It also
established eligibility criteria for free
and reduced-price meals and provided
additional funding for the child nutrition
programs.
The significant thing, though, was
that it established entitlement funding.
This evoked a lot of political and public
debate. It was a serious public policy
issue-the basic thought being that
disenfranchised children are entitled to
a school meal at no cost.
This attitude was reflected in the
application form used at the time. It
was a simple affidavit of income and
number of children in the family. There
were no questions, no reviews, no
verification. That type of philosophy
was clearly a reflection of the time.
r;,lllt sounds like that was
~an exciting time to work
for FNS.
_,..Those were very exciting
li.!2times-very intense in terms of
work. Everything was new because it
was a time of major expansion. Of
course, there was a down side to all of
this, too. There was a feeling
throughout government that you could
solve almost any problem by throwing
money at it, and we threw a lot of
money.
But we did narrow the gap on hunger.
There's no question about that. We
reached more children than ever
before, and we changed the way of
looking at poverty. We were
successful, through expansion and
through school consolidations, in
getting a food service operation in
almost every school-certainly, in all
that really wa.pted one.
15
P1't11 Let me switch our focus to
~ FNS' relationship with the
states. Has that also evolved? •
I(WIIYes, I think it has. In the early ·
!i,.!:t years of our agency, federal
employees were viewed as being the
"leaders" in terms of how to do things.
In fact, our basic philosophy was one of
a partnership in which we provided
states with technical assistance. We
did that very well then because we had
more people and specialized
expertise. State agencies were
competent, but they did not have the
staff they have today.
As state and local staff expanded
and developed professionally, their
capabilities improved tremendously.
They are now fully capable of running
the programs.
At the same time states were
increasing their expertise, the federal
budget deficit was down-sizing federal
operations. Of necessity, our
management philosophy has evolved
more toward monitoring and ensuring
accountability.
I feel this is appropriate. There is far
less federal involvement today in state
and local administration of these
programs. This is as it should be.
rn As a long-time and effective ~civil servant, please share
with us a little of your philosophy
concerning public service.
_..We could do a better job of
6J:Ipublic service in this country.
Too often we as civil servants, from the
starting levels right through the senior
executive service, lack a basic
understanding of government. We do
not understand how government
works- the roles and responsibilities
of the legislative, judicial, and
executive branches.
There should be a better distinction
in public servants' minds between their
own personal political, social, and
economic philosophies and their
professional responsibilities. In the
decisionmaking process, public
servants should express themselves
and provide input concerning an issue.
That process will render the best
decisions, and that is what every
Administration expects and deserves.
But, after the decision is made and the
change is effected, we have a duty to
respond quickly and to follow that
course.
16
r:'t We've come a long way in 20
~ years. What do you see as
the next challenge?
I[WIIYes, we have come a long way.
!i.!:JWe've developed and put into
place programs that serve the specific
food assistance needs of almost every
group of people in America.
As for the future, I think the biggest
challenge is to target our scarce
resources toward the highest priorities
and to determine how to structure
programs in order to continue our
I
Food and Nutrition
commitment to the economically
deprived. This process must be
balanced against the changing
economic conditions in the country and
increased competition for available
resources.
Another challenge will be equipping
our people-the citizens of this
nation-to become self-sufficient and
more productive contributors to
society.
interview by Blanche Jackson
Spring-Summer 1989
School Lunch Director
Receives Special Honor
Many of the people who have been
involved with child nutrition and family
food assistance programs have worn
many hats.
This is certainly true of Thelma
Crenshaw, former school food service
director, teacher, and principal from
Chesterfield County, Virginia. Because
she touched so many lives during her
42-year career, she recently received a
rare honor-having the county's new
elementary school named after her.
Thelma Crenshaw started teaching
in the eastern Virginia county in 1925.
She was the principal of an elementary
school from 1933 through World War II.
From there until the remainder of her
career, she was the director of special
services, which encompassed many
programs.
Contributed
in many ways
Among her accomplishments was
starting a visiting teacher program in
Chesterfield County to help children
with social problems.
She also started a special education
program to help retarded children who
could not keep up with regular classes,
and looked after what was called the
"homebound program" for youngsters
with illnesses that prevented
attendance at school.
"I was into everything," says
Crenshaw. "I worked in every school in
the county. The county was smaller
then, so when new programs would
come long, I was asked to do them."
That included the new federal lunch
program-the National School Lunch
Program-which was authorized in
1946. Crenshaw had handled the
kitchen for a Girl Scouts summer camp
for many years. Planning meals and
supervising the camp's kitchen, along
with some college courses in home
economics, made her the likely
candidate to administer the program.
Crenshaw remembers the program's
beginnings well. "We gradually worked
into it;' she says.
Until that time, food service had
been operated independently in each
school by a PTA. "As the principals got
to know me, they became interested in
this federal program. Whenever they
built a new school, the principal knew
he'd go with the federal program.
"With all the regulations from the
government, I had to do a lot of
research. The government wanted a
Type A lunch. I took people who had
probably been through elementary
school only, and taught them a great
deal about nutritive values and what
was necessary for the child to have
each day."
Providing quality
meals a priority
Hamburgers, hot dogs, meat loaf,
string beans and salad greens were
some of the components of the lunches
Crenshaw served.
"A dessert was not required;' she
says, "but I always believed that if you
offered a cookie, kids would buy the
meal."
Prior to her retirement, Crenshaw
was in the midst of centralizing the
lunch program and involving students
in selecting menu items-ideas which
are integral to many school food
service operations today.
"Over the years, Miss Crenshaw's
concern was to provide quality meals to
children at the best possible price;'
says Jim Raines, principal of the
Thelma Crenshaw Elementary School.
"And the children learned about
nutrition from those meals:'
Crenshaw says she had many
rewards during her career with the
school system. Improving the meal
service-from ladling soup during the
Depression to serving well-balanced
meals, complete with fresh, hot rolls­is
one of them.
Her interest in people, her good
nature, and her ambitious attitude
carried over to the programs she
directed.
"She retired from the job," says
Raines, "but she didn't retire from her
interest in the school system and the
children."
The vote was unanimous to name
the school after Thelma Crenshaw. "It
never crossed my mind;' she says, that
she would be honored that way. "I did
what I did all those years because I
was interested in children."
art,jcle by Marian Wig
17
Making WIC Work:
An Interview With
Harold McLean
Harold Mclean, administrator of
FNS' Northeast Region has been
involved with the Special Supplemental
Food Program for Women, Infants, and
Children (WIG) since its early days
when he served as the program's first
national director.
Mclean has seen WIG evolve from
an idea in Congress to a $20 million
pilot project to a $2 billion program
operated today by 87 state agencies
working with approximately 1, 700 local
agencies.
As WIG director from March 1975 to
September 1976, Mclean faced the
challenges of creating a national
program. As regional administrator for
the past 13 years, he has witnessed
the effects of expansion and change.
He has played an active role in
modernizing WIG operations through
automation, encouraging the use of
computers for such varied functions as
caseload management and monitoring
and controlling abuse among vendors
who exchange WIG participants'
vouchers for specified food items.
Mclean's accomplishments as
Northeast administrator include taking
the lead in directing major operational
changes in the New York WIG program
that saved $12 million in food package
costs and increased participation by
27,000. He shared proven measures
for preventing vendor fraud and abuse
through national distribution of the
booklet, "Four Tested Strategies for
Preventing WIG Vendor Abuse:· His
efforts brought about changes in WIG
and food stamp regulations firmly
establishing vendor non-compliance in
either program as a basis for removal
from both.
Prior to joining WIG, he served in a
variety of key positions with FNS,
including deputy director of food
distribution in Washington from 1971
to 1975.
18
Mclean brought to FNS many years
of management skills and private
sector experience in food marketing,
storage, and transportation. For more
than 20 years, he was responsible for
food promotion and distribution for the
Great A&P Tea Company,
headquartered in New York.
In the following interview, Mclean
shares some thoughts on and
experiences with WIG.
r;,lll How did you first become
~involved with WIC and what
were the initial challenges you
faced in working with state and
local officials in creating a national
program?
1t:11111When the legislation passed
r&J:Iand WIG began, it was given to
Harold Mclean was the first national
director of the WIC program. Since 1976,
he has been working with WIC and
other food programs as administrator of
FNS' Northeast region.
FNS as a branch of food distribution. At
the time, I was deputy director of food
distribution. When WIG became a
separate unit, I was initially named
temporary director and several months
later appointed permanent director.
The major challenge at the time
was to create an administrative
environment that would allow us to run
a good program. To insure that, I had to
get out there and make sure every
state knew what the program was;
Food and Nutrition
When the WIG program opened in
Pineville, Kentucky, in 1974, Deborah
Holland and her young son Robert were
the first to receive WIG coupons and
use them at a local grocery store.
what the restrictions were; how much
money was available; and most
importantly, how to spend the money
prudently and efficiently.
The states were willing to start. All
they needed was encouragement and
more information. I met with health
officials, had meetings with regional
and state health department staff, and
spoke at organizational meetings like
the American Public Health
Association and many others. The
media responded favorably, and WIC
received a lot of good publicity.
We got off to a good start. We had a
small staff of 16 in Washington and 2
people in each of the regions. Within
the first year, 250 project areas were
approved in all states but one. The
federal people and state health officials
were highly dedicated, motivated, and
very cooperative, and that had a major
effect on our success. I can't
emphasize enough the role of those
great FNS people who gave so much to
this endeavor.
Pl'lwhat do you consider your
~most significant accomplish­ment
during your tenure as
national director?
.. My most significant
&J!accomplishment actually
occurred while I was still in food
distribution. WIC started out
briefly as a branch of our division.
At the time, the food distribution
director was Juan Del Castillo. Castillo
was dissatisfied with the federal
government's letter-of-credit system.
Under the system, money was sent to
the states in a loose fashion. There
was little or no control on states'
"overdrawing" beyond their immediate
needs, which enabled them to accrue
interest on the grants they received.
Since the interest was
nonrecoverable, we felt we needed a
better system of control over the
grants. Castillo succeeded in
designing a new letter-of-credit
arrangement, which limited the amount
of money the states could "draw down,"
and he convinced the Treasury
Spring-Summer 1989
Department to pilot the system.
Castillo's system was challenged in
Congress by Senator Hubert H.
Humphrey, who wanted to convert
financial arrangements with the states
to a system of advance payments. I
believed in Castillo's system and
argued for it before the Senate
Agricultural Committee.
Fortunately, my argument prevailed
and the letter-of-credit system stayed
and eventually expanded to the entire
federal government. It saves taxpayers
hundreds of millions of dollars.
Although I didn't initiate the letter-of­credit
system, I felt I played a part in
preserving it.
r;,lll What do you consider to be
~the most significant changes
in the administration of the WIC
program over the years?
.. As WIC grew larger, the need for
&!! insuring better administration
and compliance with the intent as well
as the spirit of the law increased. The
challenge has always been to maintain
the program's effectiveness without
making it too complicated.
Computerization has played a major
part in preserving the integrity as well
as serving the nutritional goals of the
program. I don't think it has reached its
full potential because all states don't
have the! capabilities yet, but they are
getting there. Computerization has
made it easier to keep data on
recipients and insulate the program
against vendor abuse.
19
Nutrition education has been an impor­tant
part of WIC since its start. Local
health agencies tailor food packages
and nutrition counseling to the individ­ual
needs of particlpating mothers and
children.
~To what do you attribute the
~Northeast region's success
in minimizing and controlling
vendor abuse?
llr:WII The regional WIC staff has been
!&!:,1 very insistent on strict vendor
abuse controls. One way they have
done this is by ~imiting the number of
vendors so there are fewer to control.
They've also developed computer
printouts to identify high-risk vendors,
and have begun analyzing vendor
records to compare WIC redemptions
with food stamp redemptions and
reported annual sales.
With these and several other fraud
prevention measures, states find it
relatively easy to disqualify vendors.
New York, for example, really clamped
down on its vendors. The state put in
stringent rules and consequently was
able to get rid of a lot of vendors who
were abusing the program. This
20
caused a dramatic drop in the cost of
the WIC food package, which allowed
the state to greatly increase
participation.
Our WIC people were the first ones
to really enforce the disqualification of
vendors from food stamps if they had
been disqualified from WIC. And now it
works both ways. That has been a
great deterrent to fraud.
I think the WIC program is working
hard to overcome vendor problems,
and many promising initiatives are
underway.
~Another area of concern in
~WIC today is targeting bene­fits.
The Northeast regional office
and the Connecticut WIC program
have developed what's called the
"Automated Nutritional Risk
Scoring System," which may serve
as a model for targeting benefits to
the neediest individuals on a
nationwide basis. Could you tell us
about this?
KWII The concept was developed by
!&!:,~the WIC staff, and basically it is
an automated certification system that
determines the priority of applicants for
program benefits. Local WIC staff will
evaluate the applicant's status using
preprogrammed software. Program
eligibility and priority will be
determined based on factors such as
nutritional risk, age, and income.
I believe it will be an important step
in the future certification of WIC
applicants, and it will provide for more
effective caseload management. As the
project nears completion, we will, of
course, share it with other regions.
~Much of WIC's success may
it!:Gbe attributed to state and
local agencies tailoring their
programs to local needs. The
Northeast region consists of a mix
of states from small to large with
urban as well as rural areas. Given
that, what do you consider to be
the region's greatest challenges?
Food and Nutrition
ll!rWIIThe challenge in the Northeast
~is to make certain each state's
delivery system operates optimally and
meets participants' needs. Each state
has the option of providing its own
delivery system.
For example, Vermont, which uses
dairies for home delivery, reaches more
potentially eligible people than any
other state. It has been successful
because it had a strong desire to
expand its program, and it designed
ways to achieve this and use them to
its advantage.
In more urban areas, retail
distribution usually works best. The
potential for vendor problems is great in
each system, but good administration,
effective management, and improved
computerization can deal effectively
with these problems.
~What do you consider to be
~the greatest challenges
facing WIC?
~Reaching the groups the
!&!! program serves-women,
infants, and young children-is
undeniably a high priority. I think the
greatest challenge is reaching a high
percentage of eligible people most in
need of the program. In some areas,
we are doing this, but we need to find
and provide program benefits to those
at highest risk who are not getting
them.
Another challenge is protecting the
program against fraud potential,
especially vendor fraud. We have to be
vigilant and develop computerized
systems to prevent fraud rather than
react to it. In short, as custodians of the
taxpayers' money, we have an
obligation to see that the money is
spent effectively and in accordance
with the law. r:. You have been associated
~with WIC since its beginning.
How would you summarize your
achievements and experience in
working with this program?
.. I think the achievements really
ri.,!tbelong to the WIC staff at the
federal, state, and local levels, who are
highly dedicated people. I had a lot of
fun starting the program. To have the
experience that very few people have of
starting something brand new and
developing it was challenging and very
fulfilling.
interview by Cynthia Tackett
Spring-Summer 1989
The Local
Connection:
Field Offices Play
Important Role
Independent and individualistic are
two words often used to describe
Vermonters. Not coincidentally,
perhaps, they are two words which
aptly describe Donald J. Carrigan,
officer-in-charge (OIC) of the
Montpelier, Vermont, field office.
Carrigan, a one-man operation, finds
being an OIC fits his temperament and
works to his advantage. "I know what
has to be done;· he says, "and I'm free
to do it without the restraints I would
probably have in a larger office setting:·
An FNS "veteran;· Carrigan has
been the Montpelier OIC since 1968
when the field office was relocated
from St. Albans, Vermont, where he
had been the OIC since 1965.
Carrigan has watched his position
evolve through the years from one of a
program specialist to one of a program
generalist. He has experienced his
responsibilities shift with program
changes and advancing technology.
Historically, OIC's were key to the
development of the Food Stamp
Program; today they are an integral
part of all regional operations.
Remembering
the early days
For Carrigan, his professional "glory
days" were the early days of the Food
Stamp Program, and he fondly recalls
the period. "It was an exciting time,"
he says.
"The mid-to-late 1960's were part of
the Great Society years, and public
support for the then new Food Stamp
Program was high. We literally had
programs springing up overnight. It
was a very satisfying time. The work
made you feel important because you
knew you were doing something that
had to be done."
John Ghiorzi, assistant regional
administrator for FNS' Northeast
region, explains the early role of the
OIC. "When the OIC position was
created in the field offices, it was under
the auspices of the Food Stamp
Program, and the OIC reported directly
to the regional office food stamp
director.
"At the time the program was
starting, there was a great need to sign
up retail stores to participate, and the
OIC had the specific responsibility to
authorize them:·
A foundation for Carrigan's
independent work habits was laid in
those early days. "We had a specific
goal-to set up the Food Stamp
Program in a given area-and we were
judged on results. We didn't have a lot
of regulatory procedures governing
how we got the job done.
"Usually, this involved going into an
assigned area and contacting the
welfare agency to explain what we
were doing. Then we used radio, TV,
and newspaper ads, flyers or anything
else at our disposal to let stores know
that we would be holding a meeting to
discuss the program.
"After the meetings, we spent days
going into the various cities in an area
and authorizing retailers. And, of
course, we had to go to the banks to
explain the redemption process."
OIC's now have
different focus
As the program expanded through
...
21
the years, the focus of the OIC's
responsibilities shifted. According to
John Ghiorzi, th~ may be attributed to
two developments.
First, as the number of authorized
stores increased (there are now more
than 230,000 authorized stores), the
emphasis was less on authorization
and more on quality control and
management evaluation reviews.
Second, in the late 1970's, FNS
administrators decided to create a
separate organizational structure for
field offices and have the field staff
work with all FNS programs.
Also, computerization has
dramatically impacted field operations,
taking the field offices from a manual
system of authorizing retailers to a
fairly sophisticated automated system
that is fast as well as accurate.
22
One price of this progress is the
need for less direct contact with the
retailers. Carrigan, who by his own
admission is reluctant to change,
laments this diminishing contact with
retailers. "Years ago, all we did day in
and day out was visit stores. Now, we
have virtually no contact with them
unless something unusual happens. I'll
admit the program runs pretty well now,
but I sometimes think we should have
more contact with the retailers than we
do these days:·
More valuable
all the time
Both Ghiorzi and Carrigan agree on
the importance of locally based
personnel. "Because of my knowledge
of local conditions I feel I can be more
effective than someone located at a
regional level," says Carrigan. He
believes field offices should be moving
toward functioning as "mini regional
offices" in light of their increased
responsibilities.
As the OIC's duties have broadened
through the years, the importance of
field operations has increased. "I feel
there will be an increased emphasis on
field operations in the next few years;·
says Ghiorzi.
"As budgets become tighter, field
offices become more valuable
because they are closer to where the
action is and better able to monitor
local situations. You might say that the
OIC's are the 'eyes and ears' of the
regional office."
article by Cynthia Tackett
Getting grocers interested in the Food
Stamp Program and authorizing them to
accept food stamps was a huge job in
the early days of FNS. This grocer
(above) was one of the first to join. To­day,
many grocers also accept WIC
coupons (left).
Food and Nutrition
Child Nutrition
In Colorado:
Schools Get
The Message
Daniel Wisotzkey and FNS aren't
exactly strangers. They're jointly
celebrating a twentieth anniversary,
and they've come a long way together.
Wisotzkey joined the Colorado
Department of Education in February
1969. He was one of three employees
covering child nutrition programs in the
state. By fall, he was reviewing school
lunch operations across Colorado and
in August 1970 took up the reins as
state child nutrition director.
Like all good marriages, the 20-year
relationship has had its ups and
downs. Wisotzkey says he has seen a
lot of change and progress in child
nutrition-with special emphasis on
the word "nutrition."
Early lunch efforts
not always successful
Wisotzkey-and FNS-inherited the
roots of a lunch program that began as
an outlet tor surplus foods. Early
Colorado records indicate that 60
percent of the meals served under the
aegis of sponsoring parent groups or
PTA organizations in the 1940s were
nutritionally incomplete.
The need for more focus on nutrition
did not go unnoticed in the state. An
archival paper from 1956, written by a
food service director in Greeley,
Colorado, is interesting. Noting how
many World War II draftees were
rejected because of malnutrition and
its effects, the writer foresaw the
importance of serving well-balanced,
attractive lunches and encouraging
good eating habits.
She felt strongly that lunch should be
a part of the overall school program
Spring-Summer 1989
and that schools would benefit from
federal support.
"When our government steps in with
a nutrition program such as the
National School Lunch Program;' she
wrote, "it seems doubtful that a school
could afford not to avail itself of the
educational and healthful means of
promoting a partially financed program
of such great benefits to the school
child:'
When Wisotzkey began working with
the school lunch program 13 years
later, he carried the same message to
local school boards. At the time, as
many as 300 schools did not have
lunch programs. Apparently, his work
paid off-today Wisotzkey can count
nonparticipating schools on the fingers
of one hand. Only three school districts
in the state do not have lunch
programs, and some of these are one­room
facilities or are in remote areas.
That's not to say the state director
will not continue to try to enlist even the
most isolated schools. In fact, many
remote schools do take part in the
lunch program. For example,
Montrose, on the sparsely populated
Western Slope, has a ranch school that
serves four or five children and
operates only from April through
October each year.
Increased funds and
commodity support
Meal reimbursement figures are
more impressive these days than 20
years ago, certainly. The average
reimbursement during the 1969-70
school year was about 3.1 cents per
meal. Colorado received about $3.3
In 1969, as many as 300 Colorado
schools did not participate in the lunch
program. Today, there are only a hand­ful
of nonparticipating schools.
million that year for all programs,
including $25,000 in nonfood
assistance funds to provide kitchen
equipment for schools entering the
program or upgrading outmoded
kitchens.
In fiscal year 1987, Colorado
received $44.5 million in
reimbursement and more than $12
million in commodity assistance for
school meal programs.
Wisotzkey has also seen
considerable improvement in the
quality and usefulness of USDA­donated
foods provided to schools. In
the early years, some choices were
less than ideal.
Once, for example, navy beans were
shipped to Colorado and pinto beans
to New England. Since kids didn't
recognize the unfamiliar varieties, they
wouldn't eat them. Another year, much
of the plentiful supply of fresh
cranberries went to waste because
-they spoiled by the time they had been
trucked all the way to western
Colorado.
Wisotzkey has been a strong voice
tor lunch program improvements over
the years. Some of his viewpoints have
changed along with the program. He is
now a fir,fTl advocate of making
commodities an important part of
school lunch planning.
The main thrust of food distribution,
as he sees it, is still to help farmers, but
23
over the past 8 or 9 years l'fe has seen
much more consideration given to the
ultimate consumers-in this case, the
lunch program and the 24 million
children it serves.
Twenty years ago, prior to formation
of the Mountain Plains Regional Office
in Denver, Colorado, state officials
worked with the Dallas FNS office.
Wisotzkey has seen the federal-state
relationship mature from one
concerned chiefly with enforcing
regulations to one of mutual
cooperation and respect.
He praises the relationship that
exists at regional and consultant
meetings-possible only, he says,
because of the climate between
Mountain Plains states and FNS'
regional office staff.
"The regional office has recognized
that there are people at the state level
with knowledge and expertise-and
vice versa;· he says. He emphasizes
the fact that states appreciate
technical help and support given them
by the regional office.
Nutritional quality
remains a priority
As responsive as FNS to public
concerns, Colorado plans to take a
critical look at fat content in school
meals during this year's reviews. Even
without the authority to dictate radical
changes, Wisotzkey feels the state's
suggestions for improvement will carry
a lot of weight at the district and local
levels.
Judy Schure, Colorado's nutrition,
education and training (NET)
coordinator, exerts a positive influence
on nutrition in the schools. Since the
1985-86 school year, Colorado has
issued monographs on nutrition
education topics to some 15,000
classroom teachers throughout the
state about five times a year.
From their inception, the
monographs have emphasized the
effects of nutrition on a child's learning
ability. They include reference and
resource material suggestions for
teachers, who can then develop
programs for classroom use based on
units featured in each issue: specific
nutrients and their role for the child;
healthy snacks; how to recognize
various food groups; and special
activities such as tasting sessions,
simple cooking demonstrations, and
crafts projects like making decorated
24
place mats or paper plates.
Despite financial problems in some
districts today, the lunch program has
continued to develop as an integral part
of Colorado's educational system. This
accomplishment leaves some slack in
Wisotzkey's schedule for efforts to
expand the breakfast program, another
of his pet projects. During the past 5
years, breakfast participation has
grown from 20 to 39 districts,
encompassing nearly a fourth of
State and local lunch
program managers are
proud of the quality of
meals served by Colo­rado
schools. Educa­tional
materials provided
by the state office help
schools teach children
about nutrition and
health.
Colorado's schools.
Wisotzkey praises the summer
program, too, for meeting the needs of
communities from big cities like Denver
to rural areas like Alamosa in the San
Luis Valley. He thinks the program's
bad image of the 1970's has been
overcome, partly because of the
change in sponsorship rules.
Colorado's summer program has
been fairly constant over the past 10
years and is largely sponsored by
schools, whose knowledge of their
Food and Nutrition
constituency and existing need is firmly
established.
Although he's pretty proud of the
Colorado school food programs,
Wisotzkey does have a wish list. He'd
like to see equipment assistance
restored to the lunch program, for
example. Equipment costs have
escalated since 1946 when the ledger
showed $39,000 for nonfood
assistance in the first year of the lunch
program. Now some older equipment
needs to be replaced.
School budgets, unfortunately, are
under siege. It's often impossible to
stretch them to cover what may be
perceived as extras. From the
perspective of his 20-year association
with FNS, Daniel Wisotzkey views child
nutrition programs as having come a
long way, but he thinks there's still
room for improvement.
article by Joanne Widner
Rosebud Sioux Are
Proud Of Their
Distribution Program
Dallas Walking Eagle, director of the
Rosebud Sioux's newly independent
food distribution program, has been
providing commodities to recipients on
the Rosebud Reservation and
surrounding area tor more than 20
years.
He first joined the tribal staff as a
warehouseman in October 1968 and
has seen a number of program
changes since then-mostly
improvements, he says.
In the early days, federally donated
commodities were the main source of
food help for approximately 6,800
Rosebud Sioux. No food stamps were
available to reservation residents then,
since they were provided through
counties and required purchase of
bonus stamps. Most of the Indian
population who could have used food
stamps could not afford the small cost.
At the time, only about 13 to 16 food
items were available for distribution,
and picking up and delivering the foods
was a big job. The small food distri­bution
staff-consisting of a pro-gram
director and a staff of two to
four helpers-had to haul the com­modities
from the nearest railhead,
Spring-Summer 1989
about 32 miles from the reservation.
Since there was only one pick-up truck,
they used the tribe's cattle trucks,
which frequently had to be cleaned
before they could be filled.
Boxcars were unloaded by hand in
the open, even during the coldest
South Dakota winter weather. If un­loading
was not completed promptly,
the tribe had to pay to have the rail cars
held over.
Many changes
have been made
Today, the program is better funded,
there are more foods available, and
the reservation runs its own operation.
(In October 1988, Rosebud achieved
state agency status, taking over
administration of the Food Distribution
Program on Indian Reservations from
the South Dakota Department of
Education and Cultural Affairs.)
Recipients can choose from a vastly
improved variety of foods. In the early
years, the package usually contained
only one vegetable and a few canned
fruits. Now, many more choices are
available, including fruit packed in
natural juice or light syrup rather than
heavy syrup. This is especially helpful
to diabetic recipients and others on
restricted diets.
Food delivery has improved, too,
with shipments trucked directly to the
warehouse. The program's own truck
is ready to "tailgate" deliveries to
remote locations on the reservation.
More funding is available for staff and
"luxuries" such as a forklift to ease the
manual labor.
The food distribution program
currently serves fewer participants than
it used to-an average of 3,600 to
3,800 people-because some families
now receive food stamps instead of
commodities. Although the program is
smaller than in the early days, it's still
an important part of the reservation's
food help efforts.
The Rosebud Sioux are justly proud
of their new commodity program and
recently dedicated warehouse. Dallas
Walking Eagle is proud, too, of 20
years of progress in feeding needy
tribal residents.
article by Joanne Widner ..
25
Twenty Summers
Of Food And Fun
J tttttttttttttrrrtmmrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm{mfm{mmmm{ttmmrrmtt~rrrrrrmmm
ean and Frank Kuta of Grand Camp Blodgett is one of 100 summer
Rapids, Michigan, sure know how to food program sponsors in Michigan.
have fun. Since 1968, they have spent The camp offers needy children from
:::::::: the Grand Rapids area a chance to
9 weeks of every summer supervising, :;:;:;:; spend 2 weeks on beautiful Lake
~~f~t;fl~;~;~~~i~~::~:n I ope:~~::~tthe local level Sponsors
and Frank have operated the camp ;:;{ can be public and private nonprofit
with the assistance of USDA ;:;:;:; school food authorities, community
commodity and special milk programs {:;: agencies, local municipal or county
for 20 years. They have participated in :;:;:;: governments, churches, day camps,
the Summer Food Service Program } ;:; institutions providing day care for the
since 1976, the year when legislation ;:;:;:; handicapped, or residential camps
expanded the program to residential :;:} such as Camp Blodgett.
camps. :;:;:;: Running a residential camp has
Established in 1921 by the Babies :;:;:;: meant that Jean Kuta and husband
Welfare Guild, a Grand Rapids } ) Frank haven't spent a summer at home
orphanage, on property donated by the { { in 21 years. "It becomes a part of your
philanthropic John Blodgett family of -:·:·:·:··-·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.········· · :;:;:;: life. It means an extended family. We
Grand Rapids, the camp is currently :::::::::::;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;{ {{{:;:}}}\{;:} { . love it;' she says.
maintained by the Guild and funded by
United '!'Jay.
Sponsors USDA's
summer program
Each April, Jean and Frank contact
Midwest FNS food program specialist
Jerry Marcoccia for an application to
become a Summer Food Service
Program sponsor. Most. summer food
programs are administered by a state
agency, but some states, such as
Michigan, have opted for FNS regional
office administration.
"Although it's a very paper-intensive
program to operate, it's also very
rewarding," says Marcoccia, who, with
other Midwest staff, approved more
than 1 00 summer food program
sponsor applications last year in
Michigan alone.
Those sponsors served more than
2.5 million meals to more than 100,000
youngsters at 800 sites throughout the
state. "Approving camps like Camp
Blodgett helps needy children receive
nutritionally balanced meals they might
26
not have gotten at home," says
Marcoccia.
The Summer Food Program was
created in 1968 as a component of a
3-year pilot program called the Special
Food Service Program for Children,
which later developed into two
separate programs-the Child Care
Food Program and the Summer Food
Service Program.
"Congress developed the summer
feeding component to provide federal
grants to serve meals to needy children
during the summer months when
school was not in session," recalls
Russ Circa, director of child nutrition
programs for the Midwest region.
Twenty years later, the program has
expanded nationwide. Last year, nearly
2,000 sponsors prepared more than 84
million meals at over 17,000 sites.
More than 1.5 million children through
age 18 participated.
Like many USDA food assistance
programs, the summer food program is
Children come
for 2 weeks
Located on 80 acres of land along
Lake Michigan, the camp offers low­income
youth from the Grand Rapids
area a 2-week no-television camping
experience filled with nature study, arts
and crafts, archery, swimming, games,
and good food . Every 2 weeks,
beginning in June and ending in
August, another group of 160 kids
arrive.
"We recruit the kids from the
schools, and get referrals from
churches and local social workers;'
says Jean. "My husband hires the staff
of about 45 and I hire the 16 cooks,
mostly from local high school lunch
programs:·
For Camp Blodgett campers, the
summer food program is more than
just an extension of school lunch. Kuta
says that for many of the kids it's their
first consistent experience in eating
three nutritionally balanced meals a
day.
Food and Nutrition
Spring-Summer 1989 27
Nourishing meals and a variety of activ-
_,ities enrich campers' summers. Every 2
weeks, beginning in June and ending in
August, another group of 8- to 13-year­old
children arrive at the camp.
"Without the summer food program,
we wouldn't be able to operate;· she
says. "When you sit down to eat with
200 kids, the food you serve had better
be good."
· Kuta explains that all Camp Blodgett
meals are served family style, 10 kids
and a camp counselor to a table. "I try
to serve the kind of food I'd serve at
home, and the way I'd serve it at home;'
she says. Kuta and her camp staff also
make special efforts to increase the
children's nutritional awareness.
Camp makes
meals special
In addition to a special "Christmas"
turkey meal complete with Christmas
tree and trimmings, kids also enjoy
"theme" meals such as a "Wild West"
menu of chili and beans served by Jean
as Miss Kitty and Frank as the Sheriff.
Also, each Sunday there is a special
candlelight dinner restaurant-style,
with the camp staff as waiters.
"When the kids first arrive at camp, a
nurse checks them all tor any
nutritional deficiencies, and special
diets are then planned:'
Kuta says there is very little food
28
wasted tor several reasons. "For one
thing, cooks keep their eyes open tor
what the kids aren't eating, and adjust
the recipes," she says. Also, a
counselor, who eats everything on her
plate, is seated with the children as a
mealtime role model. And, the young
campers are very hungry from all their
daily activities, and when they see their
peers eating, they adapt.
Kuta says that both food variety and
quality is what distinguishes today's
summer food program from the early
years. "I remember when all we had
was canned government meat;' she
says. "We'd serve it three times a day."
She credits the school lunch
program tor positive changes in the
children's eating habits. "Now they are
more experienced with eating
vegetables such as broccoli, and new
foods like burritos. Years ago, all kids
wanted tor lunch was peanut butter
and jelly."
As with the National School Lunch
Program, all meals served under the
Summer Food Program must meet
USDA nutrition standards. Also, as a
residential camp sponsor, Kuta can
only claim reimbursement tor meals
served to children who would qualify
tor tree or reduced-priced school lunch
program meals. Kuta says that covers
about 80 percent of her campers.
USDA-donated
foods also help
In addition to reimbursement tor
meals, Kuta says her camp cooks also
make wise use of donated USDA
commodities provided through the
Michigan Department of Education.
Polly Wolff, Food and Nutrition
Service's officer-in-charge (OIC) tor
Grand Rapids, has monitored Camp
Blodgett tor many years. "Jean and
Frank are committed to giving kids a
good camping experience, and a good
camping experience means good food.
"The Summer Food Service
Program helps them and hundreds of
other sponsors across the country
accomplish that good food experience,"
she says.
article by Lawrence Rudman
photos courtesy of
Camp Blodgett
Food and Nutrition
Food Distribution
In Oregon:
Changing With The Times
UsDA's earliest food assistance Tischer has seen commodity help to state reduce costs. "For example;' says
effort was the direct distribution of schools increase dramatically. Tischer, "today we deliver twice the
surplus commodities. When the Food For 15 years, Tischer, food amount of commodities to half as many
and Nutrition Service was set up in distribution manager for Oregon's locations as when I started here.
1969, some of the agency's first Department of Education, has watched "The districts recommended the
partners were people who were the state's school lunch program change. Over the past 10 years, they
running their states' food distribution become more efficient and more have found they need to have better
operations. responsive to schools and students. control of their own costs. In order to do
Ralph Calkins was one of them. Many food distribution changes have so, they have gone to cycle menus,
Calkins retired in 1982 after 33 years helped both school districts and the central purchasing, central receiving,
with the Oregon feeding programs. For and making deliveries from central
the last 20 years of his career, he
directed the flow of commodities to
families, charitable institutions,
summer camps, and other
organizations.
The most dramatic changes Calkins
saw in his 30-plus year career
occurred in the state's Needy Family
Feeding Program. "From the mid-
1960's to the mid-70's," he says, "we
helped the program pretty much come
from nowhere to where it was our major
program. Then we watched as it was
replaced, county by county, by food
stamps.
"For a time, we had all36 counties in
the state participating, and we were
moving millions of pounds of food
through here every month.
"It was interesting, fulfilling work
establishing a statewide distribution
network;' Calkins says. "We felt we
were all doing a good job of providing
food to needy people. It was nice to
see an older couple come in and
receive their food, or a young family
with lots of little kids. It was a good
program-accessible to families, and
simple."
Help to schools
has increased
While Calkins saw food distribution
to families peak and then level off as
the Food Stamp Program grew, Mark
Spring-Summer 1989
helped schools save on meal costs and · · · .·.·.·:·:·:.:::::
improve food quality. ••
29
warehouses to central and individual
kitchens.
"The continual decline in the number
of locations we're delivering to, coupled
with the increase in the volume we're
delivering, has allowed us to
economize by shipping larger
quantities with fewtlr stops in transit."
Although the volume of commodities
has doubled, the state's per-unit
delivery charge has increased only 13
percent-from $1.45 to only $1.65-
over the past 15 years.
Schools benefit
in many ways
School food service managers are
finding their operations have to be
cost-effective to survive, says Tischer.
"In Oregon, 48 school districts are
being held to their prior years' budgets
because voters will not approve their
new budgets," he explains. "With their
incomes in effect frozen and costs
going up, schools are having to cut
programs. Food service is usually one
of the first things school administrators
consider cutting:'
In other ways, too, being a school
lunch manager is a more stressful job
than it used to be. "Today, managers
face more stringent nutritional
guidelines, more general public
awareness about nutrition, and student
customers who are more mobile and
more likely to eat elsewhere if they
don't see what they want in the
cafeteria," says Tischer.
Providing commodities as well as
processed items made with USDA
foods allows the state to help districts
save on meal costs and provide more
nourishing food. "For example;· says
Tischer, "we have a low-calorie
processed mayonnaise that is 43
percent instead of 80 percent oil.
"We also offer burritos that are not
deep-fat fried and breaded chicken
nuggets that are deep-fat fried only
long enough to make the bread adhere
before being actually cooked in an
oven." Several similar new offerings are
pending, including a low-fat mozzarella
cheese pizza.
Today, using a computer to do the
labor-intensive number crunching he
used to do by hand frees Tischer to
spend more time with school staff.
"We're getting out to the field;' he
says, "doing food preference studies at
schools, working more with the
processing advisory committee, and
attending school administrators' and
30
business managers' meetings. We're
getting their input about how we might
make this program more effective:·
Tischer, while proud of the
improvements already made, says
there need to be more. This will
depend, he says, upon communication
among all the participants. "Everyone
involved in commodities, from
purchasing to delivering to cooking,
needs to understand how everyone
else's system works, what their needs
and timeframes are, too. We work in an
era when fine-tuned systems are really
a necessity."
Tischer feels the Secretary of
Agriculture's tri-agency task force
provides an opportunity to improve
understanding among federal, state,
and local managers. "One of the
concerns of the task force is to suggest
ways to improve communication;· he
says.
"Customized" service
for nutrition projects
Betty Kay Jacobs is aware of the
need to improve communication. She is
director of program operations for
Loaves and Fishes, a nonprofit senior
services agency in Portland, which
operates one of Oregon's largest
nutrition programs for the elderly.
As in most states, the Nutrition
Program for the Elderly (NPE) in
Oregon is sophisticated and far­reaching.
Participation has more than
doubled in the last 10 years. Nonprofit
Food and Nutrition
..
Spring-Summer 1989
Loaves and Fishes, a nonprofit senior
services agency in Portland, runs one
of Oregon's largest nutrition programs
for the elderly. Meals are served in cen­ters
and delivered to shut-ins by
volunteers.
groups and government and municipal
organizations prepare the meals. Half
the meals are served in "multi-service"
centers, half are delivered by
volunteers to people in their homes.
In the early 1970's, before the
program's dramatic expansion in the
middle of the decade, Jacobs was
director of another elderly nutrition
project. She remembers receiving
small amounts of the most basic
commodity foods.
"There were dried beans, lentils,
some canned beef-two or three items
each year with very little variety. The
food was helpful, to be sure, but using
some of it required intense
imagination;· she says.
"At the time," Jacobs recalls, "the
commodities were more a supplement
than a major source of food for the
programs. They amounted to 2 or 3
cents worth per meal:'
Today, in contrast, Loaves and
Fishes and other providers choose
cash or commodities and, on the
average, receive through the food
distribution program 40 to 65 percent
of the food they serve.
The commodities option allows a
great deal more flexibility than it used
to. "We choose more than 25 items
today, including some processed
products;· explains Jacobs, "and
receive monthly rather than quarterly
shipments."
Loaves and Fishes works closely
with the state distributing agent to
assemble a "customized" commodity
order-passing up the french fries and
burritos that are more popular with the
school programs in favor of the canned
stewed tomatoes and green beans
their seniors prefer.
"Fifteen years ago, what we got
tended to be foods that were
challenging to use. I remember
searching for a way to use split peas in
something besides soup and finding a
chocolate cake recipe that used them."
For 20 years, the partnership
between FNS and local program
operators has continued. FNS makes
the programs available, and local
people make them work.
"I think everyone is working hard at
doing the best job they can;· says
Tischer. "And the only way the
programs are going to continue to get
better is if we get better at what we do.
All of us:·
article and photos by Tino Serrano ...
31
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Food and Nutrition Service
Alexandria, Virginia 22302
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use. $300
Published four times a year by
the Food and Nutrition Service,
U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Alexandria, Virginia 22302
Clayton Yeutter
Secretary of Agriculture
Ann Chadwick
Acting Assistant Secretary
G. Scott Dunn
Acting Administrator
Food and Nutrition Service
Jan Kern, Editor
Jan Proctor, Art Director
(O)food
~Nutrition
Yearly subscription: $5.00 domestic,
$6.25 foreign. Single copies: $1.25
domestic, $1.56 foreign. Send
subscription orders to Superintendent
of Documents, Government Printing
Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.
These prices are subject to change
without notice by the Government
Printing Office.
The Secretary of Agriculture has
determined that the publication of this
periodical is necessary in the
transaction of the public business
required by law of this Department.
The use of funds for printing this
publication has been approved by the
Director of the Office of Management
and Budget.
Food and Nutrition is a magazine of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In it you'll find articles on the family
food assistance and child nutrition
programs administered by USDA's
Food and Nutrition Service in co­operation
with state governments
and local agencies.
THIRD CLASS BULK RATE
POSTAGE & FEES PAID
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Permit Number G-39
Prints of photos may be obtained from
Photo Library, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 20250.
Reference to commercial products
and services does not imply
endorsement or discrimination by the
Department of Agriculture.
All programs of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture are available to everyone
without regard to race, color, sex,
national origin, age, or handicap.
A yearly subscription is $5.00 for four
issues. Foreign subscriptions are
$6.25. To subscribe, mail a check or
money order, payable to the
Superintendent of Documents, to the
following address: Superintendent of
Documents, Government Printing
Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.
These prices are subject to change
without notice by the Government
Printing Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -~ ................................. .
•• D • I'd like to subscribe to
• Food and Nutrition •• •• •• ••
magazine, published by
the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Food and
Nutrition Service.
Name __________________________________________ __
Street ________________________________________ _
City ...
State ________________ _ Zip Code _ ______ •• •• •• •• •• •• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••