The hunger council was created during the 2018 legislative session (via House Memorial 90), and HM65 requests that he council "continue its work on a single, statewide plan for ending hunger in New Mexico." This year's memorial also requests the formation of a "hunger caucus to support legislation aimed at ending hunger in New Mexico."
You can watch the proceedings in this video posted on the State Legislature's website, The portion of the session dealing with HM65 is about 24 minutes, starting at 12:53:09 p.m. and ending with the vote at 1:17:28 p.m.
At about 12:53 p.m. on March 5, the House clerk read the full text of HM65. The reading was followed by an introduction of members of the Hunger Council, who have been working on this effort for a couple of years by Rep.Joanne Ferrary and Rep. Rebecca Dow, lead sponsors of the memorial.
Ellen Buelow (Interfaith Hunger Coalition), Joy Dinaro (Interfaith Hunger Coalition), Carlos Navarro (Interfaith Hunger Coalition), Brenda Sinfield (Interfaith Hunger Coalition), Allison Griffin (Collari Communications Global), Alissa Barnes (Roadrunner Food Bank), Eva Gonzales (AARP-New Mexico), Patty Keane (UNM Prevention Research Center), Mag Strittmatter (Roadrunner Food Bank) and Amber Wallin (New Mexico Voices for Children), were recognized.
These legislators stood up to express support for HM65.
I began my career in food security, working in Mozambique Africa (Project RX) moving into D.C. at the International Food Policy Research Institute. As we well know, hunger doesn't just mean not having access to food, caloric food. Communities in New Mexico often are not just food deserts, but have an inability to access nutritious food. That means you can get a bag of chips, or you can drink a soda, but that doesn't mean that you're getting the quality of food that you need to sustain, to think well, to thrive and to live a good live.
I was so fortunate to grow up with my mom and my dad who cooked in the kitchen, who knew the difference between different vegetables, and we were able to have a garden and to really understand where it came from. And I think it's so important that we're connecting the dots with everyday hunger needs, not just for that which is food, but for that which is nutritious foods, and teaching not only our parents but our kids how to be able serve themselves sustainably with the food we have available. New Mexico could be and should be the breadbasket for the United States. So many of us are working on this from an agricultural perspective. This is just so exciting coming together to support this important legislation.
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| HM65 Co-Sponsor |
You will find in your place an apple with an explanation of malnutrition attached to it. And also a plate that the apple is sitting on. And these plates were made for us by children. I would like to read the plate that is in my place. My plate is written in pencil, and it says, "I need a food backpack for home because we run out of food. We don't have food stamps and have about 10 people in our house." So there are many children throughout New Mexico who are in this situation. I rise in support of this memorial.
Rep. Bill Pratt, Albuquerque (Bernalillo County)
I rise to remind the members that diet has a very important impact on health and health care costs. Poor diet means poor health. A better diet means better health and lower health care costs.
(Note: Dr. Pratt has been a physician and orthopedic surgeon for 50 years).
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| HM65 Lead Sponsor |
(Grant, Hidalgo, Sierra Counties)
I want to stand up and say a special thank you to Roadrunner Food Bank. They make such an impact across the state. And if your community is like my community, when the Roadrunner Food Bank truck arrives, people are lined up around the building and fill the inside of the building to get the 20 pounds of free food. And it really does go a long way to getting fresh nutritious foods into the homes in our communities.
I also want to mention our senior meal sites across the state. They are so critically important. And to thank our senior members who established those and have been advocates of those. I knew they were important before I ran for office: the companion programs, the foster grandparent programs, going and seeing the seniors working out in the fitness center, and in the computer lab, and just camaraderie and the relationships that were built from the senior meal sites.
It wasn't until I was campaigning, and I was knocking and doors that I realized what it it really meant for food security for our most vulnerable seniors. A little 90-year old lady invited me into her home to show me her refrigerator and her pantry, and to tell me that that meal came from a senior meal site, and that it was a home delivery, and that person who delivered that meal to her was her friend.
(Campaigning in) the next block, someone who is bedridden with no extended family would tell me how important the senior meal sites were to them and they had no other way to have food delivered to them, and the person that delivered the food was their friend.
I just want to thank the many members of this body who have been advocating for our senior meal sites. I hope that we find a solution during this session to make sure that these are viable and remain available in our communities. (Note: The New Mexico Aging & Long Term Services Department offers this partial list of sites that provide home-delivered meals as well as locations where seniors can go for meals).
(Catron, Socorro, Valencia Counties)
I too rise in support of your memorial. Myself and Sen. (Liz) Stefanics have carried legislation (SB84) for gardens for senior meal sites and for New Mexico grown fruits and vegetables to get into our senior meal sites. I rise in support of feeding New Mexico, from children to the elderly and everyone in between.
I'm in full support of this. We have to be very cognizant that we in America, and in our state, have people that are hungry. I kind of feel like a slob at times whenever I note that I have plenty of food in my pantry, and in my freezer and in my refrigerator, and there are some that don't...I want to commend the efforts of Pastor Mark Green (Harvest Ministries) in the Roswell area. He is fantastic. I have worked with him on several projects regarding this. I get calls from my constituents all the time, saying "hey, there's a family living such and such and know that they are in dire straights right now." I know that all I have to pick up the phone and call Mark Green, and he does follow through.
We have a group of women in the Dexter-Hagerman area called Loaves and Fishes that do the same thing. In our rural areas especially, it is very important that people that are aware of those that are hungry. It's also very important for me that our senior centers are also able to feed our elders. Sometimes, that may be the only meal they get that day--either tat our senior centers or through the meals on wheels project.Take a look around you, let's help those who are hungry, let's help those kids that are going to bed on an empty stomach. We need to be very cognizant of the fact that there are those in need in our state, and it makes me very sad.
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| HM65 Co-Sponsor |
I just want to stand up and talk about the people who are frequently affected by this, and it's our seniors, our kids and people with disabilities. Frequently those are the people that are on very, very fixed incomes. My son has social security disability, and luckily he has us. What he gets in a month is a little over $700, and if you think about of a place to live and food and everything else on $700 a month, it doesn't go very far. I think back a few years ago when we had a (Cabinet) secretary who said "there is no hunger in New Mexico." She was wrong. She was very wrong. I wish she wasn't. But she was. As long as we have people in power saying things like that, we're never going to make any progress...
Even if you don't see hunger, it is all around you. People (might) say, "she's really overweight, she can't be hungry." That's not true. The cheapest foods are the most fattening foods. Because someone may be overweight doesn't mean that they are eating the right foods, that they're getting enough to eat. They're eating what is filling. And I will tell you a quick story--our governor, when she was in DC (Congress), took the SNAP Challenge. We talked during that time. She said she had eaten more ramen during that time than she did even when she was in college. If you've been to DC, you can't buy anything for under $10. It's great that we have someone on the fourth floor who has lived with the SNAP diet and knows how really diffficult that is.
I rise in support of your memorial. I will tell you that I have had probably more calls and more work to help get funding back to our community to help pay for senior meals than almost anything in my past four years. I think a lot of our citizens get their best meal of the day when they go to the senior site to get their meal. I have been through there many times, and there's literally hundreds of people there. We have one senior site in Clovis.
I really appreciate you bringing this forward. Hopefully, we will be able to get the funding all straightened out for all our senior sites, and have adequate funding for meals for our seniors and for our home delivery services. I really thank you for bringing this forward.
I rise to support this resolution. I think New Mexico for far too long has had hunger as part of our our social economic cultural fabric. I salute you for bringing this memorial to the front because we're all here to do good work. The work we do could not be better in this area, or more important.
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| HM65 Lead Sponsor |
Thank you everyone for your comments and all of the memorial sponsors. We had mentioned the SNAP Challenge. (There is a copy) on your desk. If you'd like to take it--probably once you get home because we're all so busy not getting to eat anyway. This SNAP Challenge is something that I think makes everything become real to us.
Also, there is an invitation for all of our members to join the Hunger Caucus. We didn't get to reach to everyone before we printed this, we wanted to get everyone to realize how important this is. Please join our caucus as founding members.
I just wanted you to know that the Senate this morning has also cast the same memorial. Thank you to our volunteers who have put in so much of their time to support their communities, and working with distributions, with food banks and seniors, and it's just wonderful the work that you've done. I move (for approval) of House Memorial 65 And I ask for unanimous consent.
We are in final passage of House Memorial 65.
The vote is now open
The vote is now closed by a vote of 70 in the affirmative and zero in the negative.
House Memorial 65 has passed the house.
Note: We are still in the process of compiling the names of the representatives and legislators that signed up for or committed to be part of the Legislative Hunger Caucus. We will post a list at later date.
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