PathWays PA E-Newsletter: June 8, 2009
The Save Our Homes Coalition is sponsoring a Save Our Homes Day for Pennsylvania homeowners to educate legislators on the need to help families facing the loss of their homes.
WHERE: Harrisburg – Capitol Rotunda
WHEN: June 9 – Noon
Transportation is leaving Philadelphia at 7 AM from 16th and JFK.
The state’s Homeowners Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program (HEMAP) loans money to deserving homeowners to pay their mortgages until they get back on their feet. Unfortunately, this vital program is hugely under-funded. This is an opportunity, prior to the passage of the state budget, to make it clear to the Legislature that we need a working, fully-funded, HEMAP program to get people through the current recession.
Please contact John Dodds 215-557-0822 or Tim Styer at 215-557-0822 with any questions or if you would like a ride to Harrisburg.
Urge Your Senators to Support the Family Tax Relief Act!
Families are struggling to make ends meet and the cost of child care has skyrocketed over the past decade. Currently, the maximum deduction parents can take on their taxes for the cost of child care is $3,000 per year.
The Family Tax Relief Act would improve the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for millions of families by more than doubling the maximum credit families can claim for child care expenses and by making it fully refundable so that low and moderate income working families will also benefit.
Please click here to urge your Senators to co-sponsor this important legislation!
Summer Food Service Programs: Food That’s In When School is Out
Each summer, 18 million students are at risk of going hungry when the school year ends and school lunches are no longer available. For many children, school meals are the only complete and nutritious meals they eat.
The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) helps to fill the summer meal gap for low-income children. Faith-based, community and private non-profit organizations can make a difference in the lives of hungry children by serving meals with SFSP, a federally funded program administered by states that reimburses organizations for meals served to children during the summer.
Schools, churches, recreation centers, playgrounds, parks, and camps can serve meals in neighborhoods with high percentages of low-income families. These venues are safe and familiar locations where children naturally congregate during the summer.
There are two ways to get involved with the SFSP. Your organization may become a SFSP site where meals are served or a SFSP sponsor that both serves meals and keeps track of the accounting and paperwork. Sponsors are reimbursed for all meals served that meet USDA’s nutrition standards.
The number of children participating in the SFSP is only a fraction of the students that participate in school meal programs. Please consider partnering with the USDA to feed more children this summer.
Please click here to view a webinar presentation about participating in SFSP: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/outreach/sfsp_webinar.wmv
Additional information, resources about hosting a site and providing reimbursable meals, as well as SFSP contacts by state are available at: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Summer/
June 16: Yes We Can Day! Support Early Childhood Education!
Pre-K Today is sponsoring a day to flood district offices of the House and Senate with calls, letters, and emails in support of programs that work and support Pennsylvania’s kids and families: Pre-K Counts, Head State, Keystone STARS, T.E.A.C.H, and Child Care Works.
These important and critical programs are threatened for radical reductions in the 2009-2010 budget!
To participate or to find out how you and/or your organization can do more please visit www.paquest.org.
The Governor’s Budget Bus Tour – Help Save State Funding for Important Programs!
Join Governor Rendell, Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak, and other advocates to urge legislators to preserve critical funding for education.
WHEN: June 12 – 10:30 am
WHERE: Ridley High School, 901 Morton Ave., Folsom, PA 19033
The Senate enacted budget bill would:
• Cut Pre-K Counts and Head Start state funding in half!
• Cut State funding for basic education for the first time in history!
• Cut education funding by $1 billion!
Join us to save quality early and basic education, keep property taxes down and do what is best for kids!
Webinar: Taxes for the Common Good – What you Need to Know
Congress has started work on health care reform. The likelihood that the plan adopted will finally put us on a path towards covering all will depend on whether there is a way to pay for it. There are responsible and fair sources of taxation to allow the nation to invest in meeting human needs.
The Coalition on Human Needs is sponsoring a webinar that will give you examples of responsible and fair taxes, help you answer the special interests, and be a voice for the common good.
WHO: Joan Entmacher, National Women’s Law Center
Alison Goldberg, Wealth for the Common Good
Deborah Weinstein, Coalition on Human Needs
WHEN: Thursday, June 11 – 3:30 – 4:30
To register for this webinar please click here.
17-Year-Old School Meals Program Saved!
The popular and successful Universal Feeding program that provides school meals to tens of thousands of low-income Philadelphia school children will continue until the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act.
This important program was in jeopardy but thanks to an outpouring of support it will continue. Thank you to everyone who contacted their representatives to let them know the importance of this program!
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