The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Trump letter concerning to food nonprofits
For the past month or so, families taking part in a federal program have been receiving a letter from President Donald Trump along with their produce, meat and milk — a move nonprofits say goes against their nonpolitical approach.
Connecticut has been receiving these boxes since the Farmers to Families Food Box program began this spring, but the requirement to include letters from Trump did not come until Phase 3 started in late
September.
Under the program, farmers are contracted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create boxes with fresh produce, meat and milk that are distributed to individuals or families in need each week. The food is distributed to the community by nonprofit, religious or government organizations. In some cases, the trailers of food are brought directly into neighborhoods for residents to pick up.
“While I’m not a fan of the president, I also want people to eat,” said Robin Lamott Sparks, executive director of End Hunger Connecticut, which is coordinating and facilitating the distribution with the state Department of Agriculture and the state’s emergency management team. “Getting food into people’s hands is more important.”
She said she was not pleased to see the letters because it made the program political.
Nonprofits are legally not allowed to get involved in election campaigns or they could lose their nonprofit status.
The USDA maintains
the letters are not political though.
“Politics has played zero role in the Farmers to Families food box program – it is purely about helping farmers and distributors get food to Americans in need during this unprecedented time,” a USDA spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The letter from President Trump has been included for several months now and contains health information that is critical to slowing the spread of COVID-19.”
The letter
The letters are written in both English and Spanish and printed on White House letterhead with the president’s signature at the bottom.
“As President, safeguarding the health and wellbeing of our citizens is one of my highest priorities,” the letter reads. “As part of our response to the coronavirus, I prioritized sending nutritious food from our farmers to families in need throughout America.”
The letter goes on to describe the program, how many boxes have been distributed and offer tips to stay safe from the coronavirus, including practicing social distancing and “consider wearing a face covering when in public.”
It concludes with a message of perseverance and overcoming the challenges created by the pandemic.
“You and your loved ones are cherished members of our great American family,” it reads. “This pandemic ha brought many hardships on millions of hardworking individuals and communities through no fault of their own.”
Bryan Hurlburt, the state’s Department of Agriculture commissioner, said the department learned the
USDA would be requiring this letter in August as part of phase three. When asked if any rationale was provided with it on the inclusion and timing of the letter, he said that would have to be addressed by the federal department.
Connecticut received about 46,000 boxes of food a week during phase three, but is expected to get fewer in the upcoming phase four, he said.
In total, 186 trailers brought nearly 238,500 boxes of food into Connecticut alone.
Overall, the program has distributed more than 100 million boxes nationally, according to a USDA press release.
The USDA contract only requires the third phase vendor to put the letters in the boxes, which for Connecticut is Vincent Farms, a wholesale farm in Delaware. The organizations and people distributing the boxes to the community don’t necessarily have to keep them.
Individual steps
Lamott Sparks said she got calls from people who were upset these letters were included and told them the group could remove the letters before distributing boxes or could put stickers on the boxes saying they didn’t endorse the letter inside.
She said she’s unsure which action the different groups took.
“The problem is they came already packed,” Lamott Sparks said, adding logistically taking every letter out was more challenging.
Paul Shipman, a spokesman with the Connecticut Food Bank, said the organization also told its agencies they could remove the letters. The food bank works with about 300 different agencies across the state, some of which run multiple food-distribution programs. Not all of them participate in federal programs though.
He said while the letter is in the box, it is not an endorsement of Trump from the Connecticut Food Bank.
“We don’t have any political beliefs that we express on behalf of the food bank,” Shipman said.
A controversial move
The USDA said in the emailed statement that the letters were a good way to reach a large audience, quoting Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“I support and applaud the innovative use of the Farmers to Families Food Box program to deliver essential public health messages related to COVID-19,” Fauci said in the statement. “In addition to benefiting from fresh produce, dairy and meat products, Americans in need also are receiving essential information about how to protect themselves and others from COVID-19.”
Forty-nine Democratic congressmen sent a letter to Sec. of Agriculture Sonny Purdue in August though saying it violated the law. Among the signers were Connecticut’s U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro and John Larson.
“Using a federal relief program to distribute a self-promoting letter from the President to American families just three months before the presidential election is inappropriate and a violation of federal law,” the Congressmen wrote.
Some watchdog groups say the letter might not violate the law though because it doesn’t specifically mention the election, according to ProPublica.
A lawfirm a group of food banks in Ohio reached out to for advice, also said the letter didn’t break the law because it does’t explicitly mention the election and the letter is not “directed towards the success or failure of a political party, candidate for political office or partisan political group,” Politico reported.
Lamott Sparks said the timing certainly paints the move as political.
“That was all about an election coming up,” she said.
Shipman said he couldn’t say if the timing was connected to the upcoming election.
“It’s a program that’s relatively recent as well,” he said. “It’s had a few different rounds and each round is different. I couldn’t speak to the process and how long it took for the changes to go through.”
Among the other changes in phase three was requiring farmers provide “combination boxes,” which essentially disqualified the two Connecticut farms previously included.
It also prompted the state and End Hunger Connecticut to step up and approach the coordination and distribution from a state level. They created an online resource, which helped connect those in need with the food.
Lamott Sparks said no one really knows how phase four will go, but she hopes it works as well as the most recent phase. Through the new effort, they were able to make sure communities who might not have known about the program could get food.
“Overall, it was a really good thing, especially for the smaller communities who didn’t have access to it before,” she said.
Shipman agreed that the boxes are meeting a need.
“The boxes themselves have been a huge help,” he said. “The food has been well received. We know folks have been glad to get them.”