The White House released its 2019 budget blueprint yesterday. Along with drastic cuts to health care, education and other programs that help low-income families, it includes a proposal to slash the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by taking the grocery credit away from families and replacing it with pre-boxed portions of government food like shelf-stable milk and peanut butter.

The president’s budget proposal envisions an America in which families would be stripped of their freedom to choose the nutritious foods that are right for their specific needs. Instead, the government would take over that role, dictating what they ate, when they ate it.

The White House’s ludicrous proposal to replace much of the highly effective SNAP program with boxes of food pre-selected, assembled and shipped by the government may be the greatest example of government intrusion into the lives and livelihoods of American families since the British tax on tea that precipitated the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution.

As recently as the last Congress, a bipartisan commission on hunger (on which I served) unanimously affirmed the effectiveness and efficiency of the SNAP program. This boxed food proposal is more than ineffective, it is silly and dangerous. But we should do more than oppose it. We should instead double down on investments that improve our nation’s health, reduce health care costs, improve educational outcomes and enhance our economic competitiveness.

SNAP works for millions of children, seniors, people with disabilities and working families. Fortunately, a majority of Congress has long recognized this. It’s the same majority that would rather govern than play politics with budgets and with people’s lives. They should ignore the Administration’s political posturing and continue to protect SNAP and respect American families.

On this week’s episode of Add Passion and Stir we speak with two champions of hope and dignity. Pierre Ferrari, President and CEO of Heifer International, and Matt Bell, chef and owner of South on Main restaurant in Little Rock, discuss working with poor communities. Pierre tells us inspiring stories about the success Heifer International has had in poor agricultural communities all over the world. They do this by first providing training to get people in poor communities to make what he calls a ‘social psychological change’. “We work with communities that could almost be described as clinically depressed…the despair is so deep…they feel condemned to this situation,” he says. Heifer builds these people’s faith in their own strength and capacity to make change. “Without that psychological shift, nothing we do, no animal, no training will actually catch,” Pierre believes. Chef Bell has first-hand knowledge of the success of this model in Arkansas. He sources his chickens from Grassroots Farm Cooperative, a cooperative of 10 formerly struggling small farms in Little Rock that was formed with the help of Heifer International to meet the demand of the growing market.

Pierre also tells us about a program with female farmers in Nepal which is creating a goat meat value-chain. There are now 150,000 women who are now feeling the dignity of being economically self-reliant. Bell recalls his childhood where he observed both the food chain from his family’s home on a cattle ranch as well as the power of helping others with dignity. “An understanding of that gives us more empathy into how we tackle hunger issues worldwide and locally,” he says. These values led him to become one of our No Kid Hungry campaign’s committed supporters.

Pierre and Matt even give us some advice on the future of Share Our Strength! I hope you listen and get inspired by this sincere discussion with these passionate social justice champions.

So far the work of Share Our Strength and its No Kid Hungry campaign has operated mostly unimpeded by the change in Administrations. But new threats to federal policy demand our attention and make our state, local, and nonprofit consulting work all the more important.

Specifically, projected federal deficits exacerbated by the tax cut bills passed by the House and Senate will likely create pressure to cut social welfare programs. While we can’t know yet what form that will take, we need to be prepared.

For context, see this week’s New York Times piece by Kate Zernike and Alan Rappeport: “As the tax cut legislation passed by the Senate early Saturday hurtles toward final approval, Republicans are preparing to use the swelling deficits made worse by the package as a rationale to pursue their long-held vision: undoing the entitlements of the New Deal and Great Society, leaving government leaner and the safety net skimpier for millions of Americans.”

Being prepared for what lays ahead means getting more political in Share Our Strength’s signature fashion — not partisan.

Partisanship is part of the problem, but politics is part of the solution. Politics is about the power created when citizens get engaged, and we won’t succeed until more of them do that.

That has a lot to do with why Share Our Strength exists in the first place.

Sharing strength is often mistaken for being a charitable act — something that fills a gap where the economic or political markets have fallen short. But sharing strength is fundamentally a political notion. Charity is just the disguise it wears in polite company.

This diagnosis — that our politics are too narrow, leaving too many talented people in business, sports, science art, state and local government, etc. on the sidelines — led to the creation of Share Our Strength in the first place.

The best way to tip the scales away from the moneyed special interests that set a self-serving agenda and toward the broader public interest that our kids deserve is to attract the desperately needed talent and creativity that have either been excluded or have opted out.

Creating opportunities for sharing one’s strength does that — activating new people into our political system — in a civic, rather than partisan, way.

Sharing strength is a blood drive for our body politic, bringing new oxygenated cells into circulation.

“Share Our Strength” is not a tag line or just an organizational brand. It is a call to action to revitalize our democracy.

The tragic news of brave American soldiers being killed in the line of duty — most recently our special forces troops in Niger — leaves most of us with a sense of both despair and helplessness. It feels like there is so little one can do to support our men and women who serve. But one way to honor their service is to ensure that veterans have the support they need once they are back home — especially that their most basic of all needs are met — like nutritious food.

It would surprise most Americans to learn that 7% of our nation’s veterans, 1.5 million in all, live in homes that receive SNAP* benefits. They are a small segment of the nearly 43 million Americans who struggle with hunger amidst our rich nation’s abundance. These SNAP benefits cover only a portion of one’s nutritional needs and still leave many uncertain how to provide for their family.

If you’ve talked to as many veterans as we have at Share Our Strength, you know that most never expected to face hunger once they returned home. Just like they never expected the local day care provider to close and one parent to need to quit their job to take care of the kids. Just like they never expected a car to break down, or to face PTSD or other chronic health issues and related expenses that directly affect their food budget, the one part of the family budget over which they could exert some control.

We prepare our military to be able to handle every situation that comes their way, but once they return home we aren’t always prepared to help them handle the unforeseen circumstances that confront so many veterans. We can honor their service by being their advocates — for jobs, for health care, and for the food they need to feed their families. If Congress heard from all of us who get a day off to celebrate Veterans Day, veterans and their families would be on Congress’s agenda for the support they deserve.

*The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal nutrition program that provides low-income families with benefits to purchase food at grocery stores, farmer’s markets, and other food retailers

One year ago today we launched a podcast called Add Passion and Stir. What started out as a small venture with support of a few friends has grown into more than 50 episodes that highlight how central food is to other social issues (e.g. economics, education, health, the environment) and our overall quality of life. I genuinely enjoy speaking to thought leaders and chefs about everything from cook stoves in Africa, to people in America living on $2 a day, to veterans on food stamps, to hunger on college campuses. I learn something new with every conversation, and our goal is that our tens of thousands of listeners learn something as well and are inspired to do something about issues that matter to them.

When I sit down to chat with influential leaders like philanthropist Jean Case, strategist Dan Pallotta, policy maker Sam Kass, and sociologist Kathy Edin, I am humbled by the enormity and seeming intractability of our social problems, but also by the courage and commitment our guests have in working to solve them. I am also inspired by leaders in the culinary world like José Andrés, Nora Pouillon and Michel Nischan who are using their platforms and celebrity to help others in profound ways. We have even had young changemakers like Sarah Rosenkrantz and Sam Greenberg (founders of Y2Y youth shelter in Boston) and Alana Davidson (creator of a campus program that provides free meals to food-insecure college students) that awe me with the power of the next generation in solving our social issues.

This week our special anniversary episode features Mitchell Davis, Executive Vice President of the James Beard Foundation, and chef Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern in New York City, talking about how chefs effect change in their communities and across the nation. This eye-opening episode also has a special introduction by Academy Award-winning actor and National Spokeperson for No Kid Hungry, Jeff Bridges.

We hope you are listening, learning and activating along with us on Add Passion and Stir.

Work took me to Charlottesville, Virginia this past April. While having lunch outdoors on the pedestrian mall dotted with bookstores, restaurants and shops, I couldn’t help but think how civilized and gentle a community it was. It will be again someday soon but in the near term, our memory of it will be marred by the ugliness we witnessed Saturday.

Our work at Share Our Strength focuses on ensuring that kids grow up healthy, strong and ready and able to contribute to society. Implicit in that is that the society they will be joining is worth getting them ready for in the first place. When racism, bigotry, hate and discrimination encroach on that society, the focus of our efforts must expand to address it. Otherwise, really, what’s the point?

It doesn’t erode our commitment to nonpartisanship and bipartisanship to assert that the President’s failure to condemn racism for what it is, is a deeply disappointing affront to every American who loves our country and the values it represents. Thankfully many Republican and Democratic leaders were united over the weekend in their explicit denunciation of the white supremacists who converged on Charlottesville and who in no way represent the good people who live there.

In circumstances like these, the question is always, ‘What can I do?’ My friend Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, has made a number of suggestions about what government officials should do, but has also written: ‘We should not wait for government: businesses and nonprofits, CEO’s, clergy and citizens. It’s up to all of us to take a stand against hate. You can tweet, march, donate, mobilize, vote. Action can take many forms. It isn’t bounded by politics. Only limit is your creativity. Ultimately this is not about political resistance. It’s about moral renewal and recommitting to the American idea.’

No matter what course you take, my only advice for now: We must not be silent.

Do you have to be a certain age to solve a problem in your community? In this week’s inspiring and powerful episode of Add Passion and Stir, Debbie and I spoke with two twenty-somethings from the next generation of leaders. Former No Kid Hungry Youth Ambassador and recent University of New Hampshire college graduate Alana Davidson and 24-year old chef and owner Bobby Pradachith from Thip Khao in DC are already making big impacts in their communities. When Alana discovered that a quarter of her college classmates struggled with hunger, she sprang into action by contacting the governor and the dean of students. “I couldn’t sit on the number,” she says. “I had to do something about it.” Her efforts resulted in Swipe It Forward, a stigma-free meal donation program for any student experiencing food insecurity. Chef Bobby leads his unique Lao restaurant — the only one in DC — with bold and authentic menu options that both intrigue American diners and minimize food waste. “We don’t hold back,” he promises.

What is perhaps the most inspiring part is that despite their accomplishments, both millennial superstars remain driven to increase their impact going forward. Alana is looking forward to graduate school at Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and a future working on federal food policy. “Nutrition is never one of the national priorities,” she laments. “Food is used as a tool to keep people in poverty… How can we have a conversation around nutrition that isn’t polarized or too political because we all have to eat.” Chef Bobby plans to increase his involvement with helping those less fortunate both here and in Laos.

For me, speaking with these young people brought to mind the military term ‘show of force.’ What if America’s show of force was: We’re going to have the strongest generation in history because we’re going to feed them and educate them. We’re going to invest in kids and health and nutrition and access to food for everyone. These issues really do affect our nation’s strength. I hope you listen to this episode and are as inspired as we were by these two young leaders — here, on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In order to solve our major social problems like poverty, hunger and education, we need innovation and disruption. Sometimes this comes from unlikely places.

In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, I sat down with two provocative thinkers to discuss how they use their respective platforms to disrupt norms. Entrepreneur, author and activist Dan Pallotta is known for the creation of multi-day charitable events like the AIDS Rides and his iconic TED talk on how the way we think about charity is dead wrong. Boston restauranteur Garrett Harker makes a practice of using his restaurants to activate up-and-coming neighborhoods and empower staff members to engage in this community revitalization. Pallotta uses his platform as a founder of nonprofits to voice his disagreement with society’s expectations of them. “Nonprofits should not be hamstrung,” he says, by things like an inability to spend money on fundraising or donors’ requirements of low overhead. “Nonprofits have the capacity to radically disrupt the world in a short period of time… We need to unleash their power to address massive social problems.” Harker uses his platform of developing restaurants to place them in transitional neighborhoods to transform each community. With restaurants such as Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square and Branch Line in Watertown, his twin goals of striving to be the best and positively impacting the neighborhood have led to many successes.

Listen to the episode and guess from which sector the next disruption may come.

Listen here or on iTunes.

I’ve worked on hunger in America for more than 30 years without fully appreciating how profoundly it impacts those to whom we owe the most but in some ways provide for the least — our nation’s military and veteran families. However, they will be on my mind this Memorial Day weekend because of the powerful conversation I had while recording our podcast, Add Passion and Stir.

For this episode, I sat down with two guests, both of whom have real-world experience with the needs of veterans. Chef Alex Samayoa, owner of the popular DC restaurant Espita Mezcaleria, is a returned Army vet who had been deployed in Afghanistan. Josh Protas who heads the Washington DC policy office of the hunger organization MAZON , works to address the injustice of American military and veteran families who get shortchanged when it comes to the food assistance their families need and deserve. Together, they gave invaluable insight into some of the struggles faced by our nation’s military and veteran families.

First, a few facts:

· An estimated 23,000 active-duty military households — often lower-ranking enlisted service members with larger households — receive SNAP food stamps benefits.

· $84 million-worth of food stamps are annually used in military commissaries.

· Also, about 7 percent of all veterans, over 1.5 million people, receive SNAP food stamps benefits.

“These are really hidden issues,” says MAZON’s Protas, partly due to the pride among military families and veterans. “There is an ethic in the military about not leaving anybody behind, but the truth is we are leaving them behind.”

Chef Alex described people with whom he served in the Army who cannot afford basic necessities. “Everybody says they care, but nobody’s really there.”

Ironically, President Trump’s first budget released this week provides more for defense contractors but less for military and veteran families. The proposed budget increases discretionary defense spending by $469 billion for things like Air Force jets and Navy ships, yet slashes federal support for food assistance to the poorest Americans. The proposed SNAP cuts would impact the more than 40 million Americans — many of them kids — who rely on the program.

The proposed cuts to the SNAP program are an especially harsh slap in the face to men and women who cannot provide their families regular meals on their military pay or veteran benefits. How can we allow those who served and sacrificed for their country to struggle with hunger?

The Military Hunger Prevention Act introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would remove barriers to SNAP eligibility for currently serving military families. If you want your Memorial Day weekend to mean more than picnics and parades, listen to the conversation with Alex Samayoa and Josh Protas to get inspired to honor our military and veteran families. You can read more at mazon.org/take-action, and contact your Congressional representatives to tell them to protect military families. You can also get involved with local organizations that serve military families and veterans and help show them that we value their service and refuse to leave them behind.

The White House today will release its FY 2018 budget blueprint. Reports show that this budget proposal either cuts or completely eliminates funding for critical programs which provide for the basic human needs of low-income residents and lift families across the country out of poverty.

At a time when the nation yearns for unity, these budget cuts are sure to further divide Americans by shredding the programs that support the most vulnerable and voiceless in our society. Cutting essential, effective anti-poverty programs like Medicaid and SNAP will exacerbate inequality, poverty and despair.

This is a budget that would make Americans weak, not “great again.”

Some of the most damaging cuts are those that affect children. We will not have a strong America without strong kids, and cutting basic survival tools like food, housing and health care will undermine all efforts to strengthen our nation’s future.

The White House has pledged to invest in our nation’s infrastructure; this must include investing in our human capital. This budget does the opposite.