To our second panel of witnesses, first, we have mr. Sam schaefer, center for employment opportunities. Mr. Schaeffer is executive director for employment opportunities, ceo in new york. Since 2009 he has worked to expand Employment Services provided by ceo to 18 cities, oklahoma, colorado, ohio, pennsylvania, california and new york. He previously served as director of Economic Development for senator schumer. I look forward to your testimony, sir. Next, we have mr. Brian parker, of the Community Food bank of eastern oklahoma. Mr. Parker joins us today from tulsa, on behalf of the Community Food bank of eastern oklahoma. He is currently enrolled in the lo reisbeck taylor Culinary Trade Program, which provides training and professional skills for the Restaurant Industry. Previously, mr. Parker served in the navy on the uss midway, thank you for your service and semper fi for all the marines you helped and ran a Small Business in japan for more than 20 years. [ speaking Foreign Language ] thank you for being here today and i look forward to your testimony. Mr. Jimmie wright of wrights market, i would like to welcome the witness from alabama, mr. Jimmie right. I know the senator from alabama is extremely proud of the great work that youre doing. In alabama. Were all excited to hear from you today. He is the owner and president of wrights market, opalocka, did i nail that . Alabama, a Small Convenience store to 22,000 supermarket. He is an active member of his Community Serving as president of the opalocka Development Corporation on the board of east alabamas food bank. Welcome, sir, i look forward to hearing your perspective. Fourth witness is dr. Diane shonaback, pard me, she is our fourth witness the director of institute for policy research at Northwestern University i am sorry. Youre to introduce her. Thats totally fine. Mr. Chairman, whatever you would like to do is totally fine. Go ahead, i apologize. It only took two taps on the shoulder for me to understand you were going to no, no, either way is fine. Dr. Diane, you are so important, both of us are introducing you. Were very pleased you are here director for the institute of policy research and market Walker Alexander professor in the school of education social policy at Northwestern University. You deserve the award for the longest title of anyone we will have in front of us today from evanston, illinois also Research Associate for the National Bureau of economic research. In this role she studies policy aimed to improve lives and poverty of children with the influence of snap and Early Childhood education on childrens long term outcomes. She was formerly the director of the amount project at the Brookings Institute and received her ph. D. In economics from princeton university. Welcome. We have one more person. I understand that. Ive got this. Im going to recognize senator strange with regards to mr. Wright. I know you want to have an opportunity to Say Something in his behalf, sir. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I apologize for being late. Have you had a chance to introduce him . Ive already introduced him and can certainly add to it. Im glad to add to it. Its a rare opportunity to introduce not only a fellow alabamian and friend to this panel. What he is doing is cutting edge. It will benefit a lot of people and ive been to wrights supermarket, i know it well, creative way to serve a pop laigts that desperately needs to be served. Im glad jimmie is my friend. When i was attorney general i had the opportunity to encourage our food banks with a challenge to lawyers across our state i think has been particularly effective restocking them during the summer months. Its a team effort. Jimmie, im glad youre here, look forward to your testimony. Thank you, senator. My last wednesday is mr. Brian rendo. Did i get that right . Close. Senator mcconnell has to introduce you, sir but he cannot attend at this particular time. You have served as the director of Care Food Bank and overseen the delivery of over 19 million meals per year. Previously you were the Vice President of the government and Community Affairs for yum brands as well as legislative assistant for senator mcconnell for six years. Thank you for being here today. I look forward to your input. Lets start it off with mr. Schaeffer. Chairman roberts, Ranking Member stabenow and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in this program in the lives of millions of america. I am director of a nonprofit that will provide Employment Services for roughly 5,000 men and women released from incarceration. In ohio, new york, pennsylvania, individuals come to ceo sometimes just days after being released from prison. Although half have never had a job they are all eager to work, eager to support themselves and their families. 41 of ceo participants report that since exiting prison they have run out of food and lack the resources to secure more. Meet tomas kabon. He served 16 years for a crime he is deeply remorseful and took advantage of every opportunity in prison and earning a degree in social studies. And the day after he signed up for snap benefits and he wasnt comfortable taking what he calls food stamps but he would have gone hungry otherwise. He spend two months at ceo showing up everyday for a basic job and showing team work and punctuality. He wanted to be here today and the reason he couldnt come and we couldnt get the smile on this photo off his face he is preparing to start his a first job in 17 years working as a client advocate in a homeless shelter in brooklyn. He is relieved and proud. He has a way to support himself and his time on snap is ending and he has a job he can get back. We support many people through this program. As a Third Party Company ceo will match every federal dollar representing 2 million and significant leveraging of resources. It has been proven to work through randomized control panel and we are one of many programs to use ent help men and women on snap to get security. I would like to highlight the following for the committee. First, i urge the continued funding of the snap ent program addressing food and security employment through a single Government Intervention is aligned with what we know about hunger and poverty. Hungry people are incapable focusing on the things we ask them. Showing up and making a career plan and showing up on time. Even motivated individuals cannot focus when their mind is on when they will next week. Flexibility has been a hallmark from inception. It allows states to provide initiative responsive to local needs. That said it must balance is on a rigorous data collection. Based on the previous farm bill the committee should authorize an additional 100 million for states that adopt activities proven to work through rigorous evaluation. We should build a collection of ent specific best practices to scale across the country. Finally reconsider the three month limit to barriers to employment such as formerly incarcerated. Men and women on parole have obligations like mandatory drug treatment and parole checkin that make it difficult to make those threshholds. Waivers should be applied for those who have severe difficulty entering the labor market. Snap is a key to the survival of people and their prosperity and communities. Without snap any other opportunities and keeping the Community Safe and supporting Strong Families become harder if not impossible. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony and that excellent presentation in regards to that individual that has now is now a working part of our society. That is very helpful. Thank you for allowing me to testify today. My name is brian parker. Im a 51yearold father of two, native of tulsa, oklahoma and the recipient of food stamps, sorry, snap benefits. Im also a veteran and served on board the uss midway from 1985 to 1988 and then lived in japan the next 20 years as the owner of a small chain of english schools. I was also a physical fitness trainer for mma fighters and professional wrestlers. 2010 i moved back to tulsa to be with family and friends here. I left behind my two daughters who are both successful, my oldest being an architectural engineer and my youngest a chef. Both quite successful moving forward with their lives as adults. Ive been in the Restaurant Industry myself my entire life. I held every position from dishwasher to general manager and still take great pride being able to step into any one of those positions any given time to help my career through a crunch. Always been hard worker and i believe in it. I always felt accomplish and successful. I never worried about paying a bill or buying food or wondering where i would get the next meal. That was a thought that never crossed my mind. Like many people do i lost my job. This happened two or three years ago. Its rough. I felt down on my luck, depression, i battled anxiety and everyday it seemed to grow a little bit stronger. You lose hope after a while. Everyday that goes by without landing a job, it gets rougher. While trying to find work, i had to find ways to cut spending. It wasnt too long before i would no longer before i could no longer afford keep my car or home or anything else with that matter. With each interview that went without the promise of a new job the struggles just kept becoming more and more complicated. When it seemed nobody was willing to give an opportunity to man, its tough when youre 51 years old for anybody. When youre looking for work its daunting. When you find yourself trying to land these jobs when youre working out of a cheap midtown motel it gets even more difficult. Snap, during this time, was a life saver. It provided nutrition and gave me a lot of hope. A man can endure a lot of pain and suffering but one thing almost impossible to ignore is hunger. Excuse me. Its hard to live up to your responsibilities as a provider when youre not providing. Im very thankful for the snap program and for the snap benefits i received while trying to get back on my feet. Im happy to say someones finally decided to give me a Second Chance. Im currently enrolled in the Community Food bank eastern oklahomas Culinary Trade Program and over halfway finished with the 16 week course. The Culinary Trade Program is free to qualified participants and helps people needing a Second Chance in life. Im currently working there five days a week at least seven hours a day. The Program Teaches professional Cooking Skills and life skills. The executive chef, jeff marlo, likes to remind us of his a. A. And e. That stands for motto, attitude, attendance and effort. He likes to tell us these are the keys to life. When i graduate from the Culinary Trade Program, i will upon successful completion of the program and final examination ill leave the course with food handlers managers certificate and a set of chef knifes and some little perks. This certification is also transferable anywhere in the united states. Its a good program and its a program that helped put me in a position i can land any position i want in the food industry. Ultimately id like to get my own food truck and further down the line move that into a brick and mortar scenario with larger atmosphere. At the completion of the course ill find myself in almost any professional kitchen id like to work in. With hard work and really hard work and training and passion for cooking and my dream of owning my own business will become a reality. None of this would have been possible without the help of the snap program and Culinary Trade Program. I see how important everyday snap is to many lives in the community. Everyone needs to eat, not just the employed or the wealthy or middle class, Everyone Needs food. And food provides the fuel and strength that we need. Snap helps those in need one step closer to selfsufficiency. Most dont consider uncer to be an obstacle. Its hard to unless youve been there. If it werent for snap i would probably be homeless. Thats not easy to say. Im a proud man. Unless youve been there, you wouldnt understand. All you can do is focus on when you might eat again or how youre going to come up with the 40 bucks it takes to stay in a cheap motel one more night. This is why snap is important to me and those that need it. Any working class individual is one life altering change or bad event away from being in the same situation. One of day i want to pay it forward and hopefully im doing that right now. Thank you for allowing me to tell my story today. Im blessed and fortunate to be here. Thank you. Brian, from a marine to a navy veteran, i thank you for your service, well done. Thank you, sir. Mr. Wright. Good morning, chairman roberts. Ranking member stabenow and distinguished members of the agricultural committee. My name is Jimmie Wright and owner of wrights market in palatka, alabama, it is an honor and privilege to testify before you today and testifying on behalf of retailers and wholesalers that comprise the independent sector of the supermarket industry. Wrights market is a small family owned fullservice supermarket and accepted snap as a form of tender essentially since the store opened and understand the needs of these customers extremely well including many who are elderly. We began a Shuttle Service three years ago caught wright to you for customers who were unable to get to the store for lack of transportation. We expanded this last august and launched a delivery option. Ive been very pleased with the success of this service. Im greatful it gave us an opportunity for this and confident we can operate this officially for the snap customers. Weve been willing to take the risk by investing time and capital and still wait going for the green light for the usda. The supermarket is changing and we need the government to keep up to pace with our ambitions. When the usa transitions from paper vouchers to ebt cards our customers benefitted and stores with efficiency. Implementing this pilot will be the right step much like the ebt transition. One example of what it can bring, were planning to leverage our snap customers to other service. For example i am working on a program with East Alabama Medical Center to put physician assistants or rns on our delivery vehicles to provide basic medical checkups or care and many live in rural areas and lack access to medical care and wind up in er with chronic medical issues. As they discover other ways for medical nutrition programs i suggest you start with a federal regulatory climate for supermarkets. We understand theres a desire for some lawmakers to restrict food choices for snapple recipients. While we support the goal of promoting healthier eating the implementation of such an idea would be unworkable for the supermarket community. The burden may put some grocers out of business and therefore make Food Security worse. Instead of federal mandates we believe programs such as fini and hssi and snap ed have proven to be effective in Health Access and incentivizing the purchases and we support their reauthorizing in the next farm bill. I also recommend a more efficient process for approval of snap applications. For small retailers in Good Standing with the program. We appreciate the effort made for making it more efficient for larger store groups and encourage it to other retailers in Good Standing. Not long ago i helped a nonprofit open a store in carver. It took nearly three months to get the snap license approval from usda. It is frustrating and we appreciate any potential improvements to the process. The snap program, in my opinion, is one of the most important and official programs our nation offers and our business creates jobs and our Community Helps those in need. Nga commenced usga and the team at fns for their tireless work to respond to the back to back disasters caused by hurricanes harvey and irma and it has been in communication with the retailers and state agencies. We appreciate the hard work that has been done and continues to be done by the fns staff. Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions. Doctor. Thank you, chairman roberts and Ranking Member stabenow and members of the committee. Thanks for the opportunity to appear before you today. Im the director of the institute for policy research and professor at Northwestern University. Snap is a highly efficient and effective program. It kept 8. 4 Million People out of poverty in 2014 including almost 4 million children. Its sufficiently targeted to families that need the benefits the most and reduces the likelihood they have trouble affording food and is a stabilizer in economic down turns. The key reason for its success is it relies the private sector for food and other outlets. The reliance has been a critical future of snap since the beginning. It serves a diverse caseload. The overwhelming majority of those who participate, nearly 80 or children, elderly or working adults. It has consistently declined over the past two decades. No