White House Recognizes Placer County’s Use of Mobile Technology to Fight Rural Child Poverty
Obama Administration announces initiative to build brighter future for rural kids and challenges other counties across country to follow the lead of Placer County.
From the White House blog: Between 2012 and 2014, child poverty fell further than it had since 2000, indicating that the economic recovery is starting to improve prospects for poor families. Still, in 2014, roughly 2.5 million children in rural areas were poor and approximately 1.2 million children lived in rural families with cash incomes below half of the poverty line.
More must be done to ensure all children have a chance to succeed. That’s why today, in conjunction with the White House Rural Council and the National Association of Counties’ first-ever Opportunity for All: Building a Brighter Future for Rural Families convening, the Administration is announcing new efforts to combat child poverty in rural America. These efforts, which build on ongoing progress to combat child poverty, include:
Launching the Rural Impact County Challenge.
Recognizing the critical role local officials play in the lives of rural families and leveraging their ability to innovate, the White House Rural Council and the National Association of Counties have come together to issue the Rural Impact County Challenge to advance counties’ efforts to reduce the number of rural children and families living in poverty. This national initiative challenges local leaders to pass county resolutions identifying rural child poverty as a priority, and develop or refine an actionable plan that can be used to deliver impact for high-need rural children and families. By this summer, our goal is for at least 100 rural counties to have taken up the Challenge.
Across the country, it’s clear that some counties have already started.
In Placer County, the Board of Supervisors has prioritized reducing child hunger, and is embracing technology as part of the solution to ensuring rural kids and families are connected to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other federal nutrition programs. The county has piloted a mobile-friendly online system that can be accessed via cellphone—so that internet access and long travel distances to county offices don’t keep kids from getting the nutrition they need to learn, grow, and thrive.
To continue reading the full White House blog, click here.