• Food insecurity occurs when people can’t access the food they need to live their fullest lives; it annually affects 48 million people, including 14 million children in the U.S.
• Food insecurity disproportionately affects women, children, and families due to economic disparities, single-parent households, caregiving responsibilities, and systemic racial barriers.
• Families experiencing food insecurity must often make impossible choices between paying for rent, groceries, transportation, housing, medication, and putting healthy food on the table.
• Children, particularly teenagers, who experience hunger are more likely to struggle with physical health, cognitive development, academic performance, and emotional well-being.
• Families facing food insecurity experience stress-related chronic health conditions, poorer health outcomes, housing instability, reduced educational opportunities, and financial instability, making it more difficult to break the cycle of poverty.
  Healthy People | odphp.health.gov
• According to data from the Capital Area 2026 Food Bank’s Hunger Report, despite the affluence of the DMV, approximately 38% of regional residents (approx. 1.5 million people) struggle to access adequate meals.

• Food Insecurity is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an economic and social condition where a household has limited or uncertain access to adequate, safe, and nutritious food.
• Food Deserts are defined as geographic areas where residents have limited access to fresh and healthy foods due to lack of grocery stores, transportation or affordability.
• Food Apartheid is defined as a crisis of segregation that divides people by race and class to deny certain communities access to fresh, affordable, and nutritious food. The concept rejects the term “food desert” as too passive, by emphasizing that unequal food access is driven by deliberate structural decisions rather than natural geography.
• SNAP is the acronym of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the largest federal program that provides food benefits to low-income families. More than 37 million Americans depend on SNAP.

• Food insecurity results from root economic causes, including low income and stagnant wages, unemployment and underemployment, inflation, high cost of living (food, utilities, gas, medical bills), and lack of affordable housing.
• Food insecurity can be exacerbated by the administrative burden of obtaining benefits, the subject of a new book, The Time Tax, by Annie Lowrey. It notes that new paperwork and work requirements have cut millions of Americans from food assistance.
• Environmental factors, including climate change, can cause extreme weather, droughts, and irregular rainfall that destroy crops, reduce farming yields, and contribute to food insecurity.
• In the DMV, the key drivers of food insecurity are food deserts (especially in Wards 7 and 8), extreme cost of living, reductions in the federal workforce, and Medicaid and other aid reductions, including expiration of pandemic-era SNAP expansions.
• SNAP benefits could be adversely affected by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will shift a portion of SNAP benefit costs to the states as of October 2027. hamilton project snap state cost

• Health – Food insecurity is associated with psychological distress, depression, anxiety, and other adverse mental health conditions. Research has linked food insecurity to chronic health conditions, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and other adverse health outcomes.
• Education – Food insecurity directly harms a student’s ability to learn by lowering test scores, increasing absences, and lowering graduation rates.
• Economic – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2030, finds that food insecurity is closely tied to limited economic resources and economic hardship, contributing to ongoing poverty.

• In 2026, food insecurity across the DMV region has reached a five-year high, affecting 38% of residents and surpassing the level reached during the height of the pandemic. Despite being home to significant wealth, many households struggle with rising food prices, high housing and other costs, and reductions in assistance programs. Food banks and community organizations across the region report continued high demand for emergency food assistance.
• Since its founding in 1989, the mission of DC Central Kitchen has been to use food as a tool to strengthen bodies, empower minds, and build communities and thereby help people find a way out of poverty.
• Led by chef Jose Andres, the George Washington University Global Food Institute (GFI) advances cross-disciplinary research on food access, urban agriculture, and sustainable food systems.
• University of Maryland, College Park invests heavily in campus-wide initiatives and research grants targeting food insecurity through research.
• Through the Earth Commons and Policy Initiatives, Georgetown University engages in global food security research and conducts localized studies on the impact of food insecurity.
• The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) operates community “food hubs” in underserved DC wards. It integrates urban agriculture, green infrastructure, and local food production training.
• American University manages community-driven grant research focused on local grocery store access, urban food systems, and projects aimed at supporting local Black farmers and fresh produce distribution in Wards 7 and 8, and operates a food recovery network that donates to local shelters.

Many Hands 2026 Grantees

• AfriThrive: Maryland and Washington, DC based nonprofit founded in 2019, dedicated to mobilizing, connecting, and empowering mainly African immigrant communities to create sustainability focused solutions.
• DC Greens: Washington, DC based nonprofit founded in 2009 advances health equity and builds a just, resilient food system based on the core belief that healthy food is a human right and that marginalized communities disproportionately impacted by poverty and food insecurity must lead policy program and design.

Many Hands 2020 Impact Grantee

• Nourish Now: Rockville, MD based nonprofit founded in 2011 seeks to solve food waste and hunger by recovering food from restaurants, caterers, farms, and other licensed food providers and distributing it directly to families in need and to partner organizations, including shelters and food pantries.

Other DMV Nonprofits that Focus on Food Insecurity, Nutrition, and Food Access

• Capital Area Food Bank
• DC Central Kitchen
• Food Project
• DC Hunger Solutions
• Food For All DC
• Food Justice DMV
• Food Rescue US-DC