The Food Bank advocates for change, bringing issues of hunger to the forefront and empowering people to work towards developing long-term solutions.
Why we Advocate
At the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, we recognize that providing food to community members experiencing hunger is only a temporary fix. Real solutions require addressing the underlying causes of hunger in our region, including institutional racism and economic inequities.
Increasing Opportunity: The Economic Pathways Coalition
This group seeks to alleviate the Cliff Effect, a phenomenon that occurs when a small pay increase causes a low income worker to loose a disproportionate amount of benefits, leaving them financially worse off.
Supporting our Students: The Hunger Free Campus Initiative
Led by the Western Massachusetts and Greater Boston Food Banks in partnership with student advocacy group MASSPIRG to address food insecurity among college students on Massachusetts Campuses.
Visit the Initiative website >
Policy Priorities
Approved by the Food Bank Board of Directors each year, our Policy Priorities are a guidepost for how we approach legislative advocacy. There are three categories a policy priority can be sorted in to, and they are done so to guide how actively the Food Bank engages with the drafting and promotion of legislation.
- Primary Focus policy initiatives are led or co-led by the Food Bank itself. Legislation in this category has the most direct impact on hunger and its underlying causes.
- Secondary Focus policies are initiatives that have clear impacts on hunger and its underlying causes and are therefore are advocated for by the Food Bank, but are not policies the Food Bank is best positioned to lead advocacy on. Many of these policies protect and strengthen programs that are anti‐poverty, anti‐racist, and educational in nature.
- Other Supported Policies support the advancement of equity more generally, and like Secondary Focus Policies have advocacy initiatives led by other organizations. These are policies the Food Bank may not engage in direct advocacy for, but officially support.
View a PDF of our full 2025 Policy Priorities >
Federal Public Policy
Primary Focus
- The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides money to eligible recipients each month to purchase food.
- The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) provides food to food banks, which our member food pantries, meal sites, and shelters then distribute to eligible households.
- The Farm Bill is an expansive piece of legislation that governs many nutrition and agriculture programs.
Secondary Focus
- The Earned Income Tax Credit is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working people with children.
- The Child Tax Credit Expansion was a COVID-era change to the CTC that broadened eligibility and the frequency of disbursements.
- Oppose changes to “Public Charge” and other rules that put vulnerable populations at risk.
- Encourage participation in the democratic process through voter education, registration, and engagement with elected officials.
State Public Policy
Primary Focus
- The Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program (MEFAP)
- The Hunger‐Free Campus Initiative
- HIP—the Healthy Incentives Program
- Regional Transportation Advocacy
- Bridge to Prosperity Cliff Effect Pilot
- The establishment of a commission to study the strengths and sustainability of the state’s food access network, HD.2378.
Secondary Focus
- Support state-level work to implement relevant pillars of the White House National Strategy on Hunger, Health, and Nutrition.
- An Act fostering agricultural resilience in MA, SD.2144/HD.403.
- An Act encouraging the donation of food to persons in need, SD.834/HD.403.
- An act ensuring tuition equity at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, SD.858.
- Expand food literacy in MA schools, SD.1235/HD.2100.
- Proposal for a legislative amendment to the constitution relative to agricultural and horticultural lands, SD.1673/HD.2701.
- Affordable housing and utilities
- Access to affordable services/education, such as childcare, higher education, behavioral health services, substance abuse treatment, and services for seniors and people with disabilities.
- Universal access to affordable health insurance.
- Farm to School initiatives.
- Support other organizations’ policy priorities when overlapping and appropriate.
Previous Initiatives
Universal School Meals
Led by Project Bread, An Act Relative to Universal School Meals (S.314 and H.714) ensured that all K-12 students in Massachusetts have access to free meals at school.
Work & Family Mobility Act
In an advocacy push led by MIRA, The Work and Family Mobility Act (H.3456 and S.2289) extended eligibility for Massachusetts standard driver’s licenses to all qualified state residents regardless of their immigration status.
Breakfast After the Bell
Headed by the Rise & Shine MA coalition, this bill greatly expanded access to free breakfast during the school day for K-12 students in Massachusetts.
Community Partnerships and Coalitions
Local Option for Housing Affordability (LOHA) Coalition
Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition
Western Mass Transportation Advocacy Network
Hampshire County Food Policy Council
Western MA SNAP Coalition
HCHIP (Hampden County Healthy Incentives Program)
Western Mass Network to End Homelessness