Okay. Good morning everyone. This hearing of the House Tribal Affairs Committee will now come
to order. The time is 8.04 a.m. Thursday February 12th, 2026 and Capitol Room 106. Members present
Representative Carrick, good morning, and myself, Chair Dibert.
Let the record reflect that we do have a quorum to conduct business.
And a quick reminder to please silence your cell phones.
Before we begin, I would like to thank Jordan Nicholson, the Tribal Affairs Secretary from Records.
And Emily Mech from the Juneau LIO for staffing the committee today and keeping us going smoothly.
Before we get into our agenda, I'd like to remind the committee that we will have a hard stop today at 9.30
For another meeting that I need to go to
Introductions, we have one item on the agenda today
We will be hearing a presentation from the food bank of Alaska
We're joined in the Committee room today by chief advocacy officer Rachel Miller
and Chief Programs Officer Anthony Reinart, who will be providing an update on the food
banks, statewide services, and rural programs.
Mrs. Miller and Mr. Reinert, welcome to the Tribal Affairs.
Please join us at the table and put yourself on record and proceed with your presentation.
Good morning. Good Morning
Thank you for having us for the record. My name is Rachel Miller. I'm the Chief Advocacy Officer for Food Bank of Alaska
Thank You so much for The record my name, is Anthony Reiner Chief Programs Officer at Food bank of, Alaska
This go time it is yeah, and your only thing on the agenda so I think we'll have plenty time for
For questions as we go along
All right, perfect. Please proceed. Great. Well, good morning again. Thank you for being here
and thank you, for your interest in our anti-hunger work across the state. Food Bank of Alaska has
been working in the State to end hunger since 1979 and we are still here, which means there's
still work to do. So this morning we'd like to share with you what we do at Foodbank of
Alaska, how our model works. We'll talk a little bit about our partners and specifically how we
I'm joined by a Chief Programs Officer, Anthony Reiner, and we'll talk a little bit about
our organization first.
Got all the tools.
Excuse me.
So we will kick off with some numbers around the scope and scale of what we do.
Food Bank of Alaska is just that.
bring food in, we send food out, and ideally it gets to our end users, which are our clients,
they are all of our neighbors as expeditiously as possible and as cost effectively as
possible.
We have a variety of programs that Anthony will talk about in a second, but just to highlight
some numbers to set the baseline, one in seven Alaskans experience hunger, that means one
in five kids experience Hunger.
So what we do is work with an anti-hunger network around the state, and that includes
over 150 organizational partners who do direct service to clients or our neighbors.
And that include 185 rural communities.
Last year we distributed over 10 million pounds of food,
You know that we have not a lot of road miles in Alaska
and so a
Lot of our work happens far beyond the end of the road and Anthony can highlight what that means and cost in time to
to serve
And some of challenges that
We all have experienced just by by living up here. We know what our supply chain looks like in means
And how it affects us
So I'll turn over to Anthony to talk about this big list of work that We do
Alright, thank you Rachel
Again, my name is Anthony and I operate the programmatic side of Food Bank of Alaska with
a team of nine.
Food bank has been growing over our time operating and we're now almost up to 50 employees,
which is incredible.
We also have a new facility that's allowing us to reach more corners of the state than
we ever have before.
We operate about a dozen programs, some of them highlighted on the screen, many of
them focused on finding ways to efficiently move food out to rural Alaska.
As noted, and as we all know, challenges of serving our neighbors in rural
Oftentimes experience higher rates of food insecurity and more acute instances of hunger than we see in our road system neighbors.
We operate a number of programs that target specifically either times of year or certain populations of neighbors to be able to make sure that our most vulnerable are reached.
And I'll highlight a couple here. We work with our state and federal partners to administer
the summer food service program, which covers children's meals over the
summer when there's a gap in school meals.
We're really excited about our work in the last several years on a program called Meals to You,
which is a subset of the Summer Food Service Program. Meales to you.
a preface, is an incredible way of getting food directly to households in rural Alaska,
and it's doing exactly what it was designed for. We'll talk a little bit more about it later.
We also operate a program called the Commodities Supplemental Food Program. You'll hear maybe
some acronyms. And that is kind of commonly known as the Senior Box Program, and its nutrition
We operate commodity food programs, TVAP being one of them,
the Emergency Food Assistance Program,
where we actually bring commodity
food up into Alaska and then ship it out
to our network of about 65 partners.
That is our rural flagship program.
We'll also talk more about that later.
Part of our work is rescuing food, so about 60% of the 10 million pounds that we distribute annually comes from food that would otherwise be thrown away.
We have a fleet of trucks that rescue that food from grocery stores at the end of its life and we're able to turn it around very quickly to our neighbors.
It's very important because SNAP is our most powerful tool in battling hunger currently.
So we send our staff all over the state making sure that our neighbors have access and supporting
them and completing the application.
And we're also very excited to talk about some new and upcoming opportunities.
Food is medicine being one of them, connected to the Rural Health Transformation funding.
provide produce boxes to people suffering from cancer.
So that's current and we're excited to speak more about it.
And then we'll start to get into some of these programs
and to give a little more detail at questions are welcome.
Every question helps us learn a bit more
in how to communicate with you.
Something that is important to remember
is that Food Bank of Alaska.
If you look at the scope of the scale that we distribute at,
our food comes from a variety of sources.
We, as Anthony said, we do food rescue.
The food banking model historically
was largely about food, rescue, and recapture
and redistribution to decrease waste in the system
and get it to those most in need.
We do also increasingly purchase food, so donations from sponsors, donations
from individuals are something that it's a key cornerstone of our model, and we
also, again, as Anthony said, work with government commodity programs. So this
is quite the patchwork quilt of how we make every year happen,
and that's why we're really grateful to be down here every
year during Food Security Week to speak with all of you,
so thank you for your audience.
Thank you so much for this slide. This was a lot to take in and I have one question
I'll look to the committee if they have others
I really appreciate the mentioning of off-road on the road and
Rural Alaska
Is there a region of the state that is a high need for that you could like highlight for us?
Thank You. Yes, there is and it is on a handout that
is in my bag
Right there. I would love to stand up and get it.
Absolutely.
Alaska does have some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the nation.
And we, Food Bank of Alaska is part of a larger network of Food Banks,
called the Feeding America Network.
It's about 200 partner food banks, us being one of them.
Through our network, we're charged with serving the entire state of
Alaska, and as mentioned,
we do that through a network partners.
spends a lot of resources studying hunger to understand where gaps exist and in
fact the study is called Map the Meal Gap which is where we get most of our
information but we know that the Kosovo region of Alaska is has the highest rate
of food insecurity in the nation. In the Nation.
To build on that every office this week has received some blue folders labeled the Alaska food coalition
And in those folders our handouts one of them is about the state of hunger in
Alaska where again, we highlight that one in seven Alaskans experience hunger and
There's a map on there with the top five the height top 5 areas with
The highest rate of food insecurity starting at 25% with cusla vac
And then moving to Bethel at 20.8%. You can quit cook
at 20.1, Gnome 18.8, Northwest Arctic 18,5.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
It just kind of gives us a broader picture
when we talk about food insecurity in Alaska.
Before I go to the next question,
I'd like the records to reflect at 808.
We've been joined by Representative Story.
Question from Rep. Kerrick.
Thank you for being here. Good morning. And through the chair, I just wanted to ask about the emergency food assistance program a little bit more.
How many communities in Alaska right now are receiving food through that program again?
that receive TFAP, that does not mean 70 communities.
A handful of them are in Anchorage, also in the Matsu.
In rural Alaska, we have about 60 communities
that received TFAB commodities directly.
And a follow-up, follow up.
And then, I guess, can you give me just a general sense?
I know it probably looks different in each of those 60
communities, but just the general
the fresh produce and food is received in those communities on the whole that's coming from the
emergency food assistance program. Mr. Reiner. Do the chair.
We don't often have opportunities for fresh produce in TFAAP,
being a government commodity program.
Most of the food that we receive is shelf stable commodities.
We do occasionally get grants that allow for the purchase of produce boxes.
Unfortunately, those boxes do not travel well,
and so we are often forced to turn them around on the road system
as opposed to trying to send them out to rural.
follow-up. Thank you through the chair for the indulgence. I'm just trying to get
a sense of how, what percentage of the volume of food coming into these 60
rural communities served by this program are primarily served
by food, coming in from this Program. And that's, you know, I worry for those
a lot of the food that's coming in is through a program called the emergency
food assistance program because it indicates a different relationship to
the Food that is coming and then something that would be
named differently. So if you have any comment on that too.
I can talk to you, please. Miss Miller? Sure, thank you.
Through the chair.
I that is a great question. I don't I'm to make sure I understand are you asking about the total amount of food going to communities and what percentage of that?
Is t-fat yes and recognizing that all the communities that serve by it are going
to look different and so there's not a hard and fast answer I am sure but sure any idea on the percentage it would depend.
Like, not only do we have many, many programs across each community, but also there's a
bunch of other food that comes in through grocery stores and other programs.
What I can say is that how we determine the amount of food a community gets is through
a ratio based on the size of the community and their overall need.
As we receive our percentages from the state of Alaska, we then are able to determine how
a pile of food can go out to each community and we do that like I said based on need in population.
Thank you. That adds a lot.
That's, thank you, that's a great question that is very helpful. Just kind of knowing the picture
of the food going into a rural community. I'm sure there's grocery stores or SNAP, there is
and also subsistence, too, in the area, which is very important.
Representative Schwanke.
Thank you, through the chair.
I'm curious how much discussion has centered around,
so traditional food sources in rural Alaska,
it's never been fresh produce, right?
It's, you know, during the summertime when things grow or when you harvest then it's the only time
that you get something fresh and then the rest of the year is maintained by food preservation.
So I'm super curious after this last summer I think when food boxes were delivered out to
individual families for kids, I saw a lot of those foodboxes and it, it was all packaged food and
table part of it and it looked like a lot of
it was in the best attempt that packaged food
can be, it's healthy, no sugar added, types of things.
But those products are very expensive,
especially when they're packaged in very small quantities,
eight ounces, right, 10 ounces.
So.
I'm kind of curious if the food bank has worked at all with bulk suppliers and
Consider the freeze-dried concept. It's such the technology is really rapidly improving and and so I was just kind
Of curious. If there's an opportunity and even potentially to work with some Alaska growers on
Produce that's not sold right away
And I am just curious
if you guys have talked about that atall or trying to make that connection with people because
When you go out to any of the rural villages,
the vast amount of food that is preserved,
even in my own house and my pantry and freezer,
there's things that are smoked, there are things
that're dried, that were cured,
there were things preserved in a lot of different ways,
canned, jarred, freeze dried.
I mean, it's just the more variety that someone can have
in their home on these shelf-stable wild foods
monthly or regular deliveries of like Ms. Caret pointed out, I mean, if it's under an emergency
food program, that's frightening, you know, a little bit.
So can you describe maybe any efforts and discussion that is centered around kind of
entree into talking about our entire food system in the state and I think it is
Important to recognize that not all subsistence gathering is captured in
The numbers that we have and that's important to respect and you know
There are a lot of people who may be called hunger or fall under the hungry label
And yet they are subsisting and taking care of their own and i want to recognise that
it is not always a struggle situation, right? There is a very robust subsistence network and
we recognize that. Serving rural and dovetailing that with traditional foods access is something
we regularly talk about at Food Bank and respect the enormity of that task. We uh...
For lack of a better term, we don't want to be a bull in a china shop and come in and
dictate what anyone would do.
Subsistence harvest is so critical at the community level and so we would never want
to commodify a wild harvest.
We want make sure that people feel empowered to supplement what they do with resources
we can provide.
We recognize there's a lane and some boundaries there.
This this goes into bigger conversations around education around food preservation and peer-to-peer learning and elder youth connection and things like that
So we recognize that I will try and stay in this lane. No food bank today
I'll talk a little bit more about this as we get further on in the food is medicine discussion
Which is a nascent initiative right now that we're looking at
Defining for the entire state and traditional foods are a part of that
follow-up
And my apologies, I didn't mean to go down the path of education on that front.
I was more actually just considering the fact that when food is purchased in bulk,
and if it is bulk purchases of dried foods in particular or combination like soup packages,
kind of things that are dried that can just be heated, and it's a nutritious meal that's just
you know, a wide variety of foods in one package.
I'm just kind of curious if that's an opportunity
where we can really get a larger quantity of food
at a much lower price.
So we've got, yeah, okay.
Through the chair.
Thank you so much for this question,
because I think it's really important
to get into the weeds a little bit.
And I believe in
The initial question, we're discussing the Meals to You program, the boxes that arrive
to our rural neighbors directly to their homes.
And I want to just reference that you're exactly right.
The food is often individually packaged, and I wanna highlight kind of two big constraints
that we have.
One that I'm sure you are all well aware of is the shelf-stable nature of shipping
food in rural Alaska.
But the bigger constraint that we oftentimes face in specifically this program are the
federal requirements for nutrition.
And when you combine those to the need for product that will survive the journey from
our vendor in Houston, Texas, to our neighbor in rural Alaska and without any need
for refrigeration or a cold chain, combine that constraint with the very strict
nutrition requirements from our federal government USDA, we actually end up with a very small
amount of food that we can use. And our vendor has been wonderful in making sure that
we have options and the widest variety of foods possible.
The value is not necessarily in the poundage efficiency
of the food arriving,
because it's 10 meals per child per week.
But it is focused on the ability to get that food
directly to the door of a child,
which is something that we've never had before.
So we trade off a little bit of poundages efficiency
and bulk efficiency for the
ability put it right at the feet of that child.
One more quick follow-up follow up, and I have to admit I kind of struggle with that program a little bit
When the government or when a nonprofit is delivering something directly to a child
You're bypassing the family unit you're by passing the
family that is
Supposed to be providing for their children
And so I struggle a little bit with it because I think it creates a dependency
unfortunately in a
In the same way that, in some cases, free lunches and schools have provided kind of an alternate pathway and parents have been able to somewhat step away from their duty as a parent to provide for their children.
And so that was kind why I was thinking, instead of a big box of snack foods that were all individually packaged and not to say that it wasn't a great program, but it was short term.
And people got really reliant on it and then when it ends, they're like, oh my gosh, how do I feed my kid?
Well, you know, so I guess, like I said, I struggled with it a little bit from that perspective if you can kind of understand where I'm coming from, but...
but bulk foods that go directly to families as a unit,
that really encourages a family,
especially when they have to cook something
or rehydrate something and then maybe put it
in a little bag or put in
a Tupperware container and send it with their child.
So I just wanted to kind of get at that a
little bit more with the bulk food concept.
So, but I appreciate and I'd like to learn
a bit a more about the vendor
and your federal constraints.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
I can respond to that as well.
Thank you, Ms. van der.
Certainly.
To the previous point about freeze-dried food,
we've spoken with some of the local companies who do that.
And currently, the economies of scale
is not at the point where it would be cost-competitive for us.
They are expensive and quality, right?
And so it's not really, it wouldn't be
cost effective to mirror the meals to you program
with one of local freeze dried companies right now.
We have talked.
a lot around what to do when we have a glut of bananas.
What do we do with that?
That's what food preservation is all about,
is extending the lifetime of a resource.
And it is something we are looking into
and actively engaging with partners on,
but we're always open to more specifics around that.
To comment on the family child and delivering meals directly
to children, that is
something that was shown to be in need in communities.
Ask families to manage themselves differently. We respond to need and so that is that's at the community level and how households manage them selves
It is it is part of the discussion social fabric is certainly a part
of of that anti hunger discussion and
Because we are so culturally rich and diverse and food bank is a statewide organization.
We meet the need, and
And that so we have to feed kids first with the one-in-five children being hungry
It doesn't mean it's the solution forever.
It does mean that's a silver bullet.
And we regularly evaluate these programs.
And internally, we're discussing, you know,
what, how could these be better?
And what does this mean to end?
What would ending hunger look like in the state?
But we are so far from that.
Kids need food today.
Thank you, Ms. Miller.
We have a question from Rep Story.
Thank You, Chair Dibert.
I threw the chair a welcome.
Great to have all this information
and know what's going on.
Food security.
Really appreciate the efforts and appreciate
the community coming forward to and helping.
My question has to do with the help
from getting through the regulations in Washington, D.C.
How frequently do you communicate
with our congressional delegation
about what needs to change in the
regulations from Washington to understand
the unique Alaska?
Thank you through the chair
We have what I would call a
Consistent line of communication which each of our each office in our congressional delegation
We are they proactively reach out and ask us to review bill language. They ask about potential impact
We pro offer information as an example last summer during HR one negotiations also known as the big beautiful bill
there was much back and forth about
potential impacts of cuts to snap and then
adjacent impacts, looking at cuts to Medicaid and what that would mean for our
neighbors. So I would say it is a solid consistent communication and questions
go back and forth.
Through the chair, I'm pleased to hear that and I really would encourage efforts about what regulations need to change
And I'd be curious to know what you have sent to the delegation about regulations that need
To be changed because I would love to see them so I too can raise an informative voice of what the bottlenecks are I have
Been trying diligently to get our
One licensed child care provider in Hanes, Alaska to Get the federal government to
do what they did during COVID, which was virtual visits three times a year to assure the quality
of the program that this provider has been doing for over 20 years, received nutritional
You know, more off the road system in Haynes, very expensive.
And this money made a huge difference in the little salary
that she gets from her families, which is significant to the families.
And what we've found the bottleneck to be is there has to
be, it can't be the federal government giving to
the state which they do.
And the State cannot give directly to
the provider, they have to give to a third party.
And there is no third-party.
They have quit servicing Hayns.
And that's a tragedy to me, so anyway, I would appreciate,
sorry to go a little bit off the rail there, but I
would really appreciate knowing what you're advocating for,
so I too can advocate for those changes.
Great question, Ms. Miller?
Sure, thank you for the question through the chair.
We are happy to follow up with our laundry list of the day of what is going on and important
to distinct between statutory, you know, policy and regulation, and often we have questions
about regulation and that should go to the agencies, the federal agencies such as Food
and Nutrition Services at the USDA.
We often are redirected to agencies from our congressional delegation as they are, they
how SNAP works and how our programs work.
So we are happy to follow up and talk more about that.
Okay. And thank you.
I think we, I'd like, before we move to the next slide,
I would like to welcome Representative Ruffridge,
who joined us at 829.
Good morning.
All right.
Next slide.
I'm think you touched on this a little bit.
I love this program.
I know when we had the COVID money, we
had meals and Fairbanks that were given out
at Lather High School right in South Fairbangs.
And kids were all summer long biking up
and getting their lunch bags.
And it was really great to see the kids being fed.
So I'm excited to learn more about this.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
So the Meals to You program.
began back in 2019 as a pilot from Baylor University.
And traditional summer food service program, SFSP,
is a program that covers children nutrition
during the summer months
when they don't have access to school meals.
Traditionally, that program runs a point in place
in a community, and Food Bank of Alaska
works to identify sites.
sponsor those sites and ship bulk amounts of food to those communities and are distributed in a
very patterned, metered way to speak a little bit about bottlenecks and challenges. We have always
been challenged to operate a traditional program. And in the past, we've only been able to reach
offers a lifeline option for rural communities and Senator Murkowski was a big champion of
bringing this pilot program up to Alaska. Given this situation into 2020, the program was rapidly
expanded to include many states including Alaska and ran as a pilot throughout the pandemic years.
by Deed here in Alaska who wanted to take this program into the demonstration phase.
So, it began as a pilot, is now a demonstration, and we've been operating this program.
This will be our third season this year.
And we have seen the program balloon and reach more students than we ever have before in
the state of Alaska.
And for a little bit of context, in a normal year prior to meals to you, the State of
meals across the entire state, across all programs.
Since adding meals to you as an option,
just meals you alone served over a million meals last season.
So we've been able to rapidly increase the number of meals we're able
to serve.
We've be able get those meals directly to the household so that they can be utilized.
We have reduced the burden of access.
We increased the numbers of communities we can get the food into.
And we are able provide a wider variety of food options in a way that we have never been
able do before.
by reducing barriers of access, by
reducing administrative burden of
having to run individual sites, and
we've also leveraged a really close
relationship with the United States
Postal Service to be able to deliver
those boxes. And all of that has come
together with an incredible vendor to
make this possible,
and again, as I mentioned, just this
last season we were able serve over a
million meals in the months of June,
July and August, to just under 10,000
It's an incredible opportunity and we're honored to be part of the demonstration program and
we are really hoping that it will move into a full-fledged option beginning after next
season.
Thank you so much, Representative Story.
Oh, thank you Chair Dibert.
Through the Chair, when you talk about the vendor, is that the
vendor that's in Texas that you're talking about and if you could clarify that please?
Do the chair, yes, exactly, our vendor on the program is a company called McLean Hunger Solutions.
And they're a wholesaler that specifically works with food banks to provide low cost,
high quality services to the non-profit sector.
Follow up, thank you, through the Chair.
If you could help me understand how that works, with the vendor.
Collaborate just kind of the how the food gets here and that whole process
Absolutely do the chair
So we given the scope of this program we went through a
federal standards bid process
to
Identify our vendor when we started the program and we carry them for three seasons and will go through another bid
but McLean hunger solutions was
the most experienced vendor in our bid pool.
They were the ones that ran the initial pilot
with Baylor University and across the handful of states
that participated in the pilot.
So they had the infrastructure.
They bring in all the food wholesale
and then they're able to build our boxes custom.
So we're to add Alaska specific content.
We're be able work with them directly
to create our custom menus.
Many of the other vendors across the nation provide a single packaged meal unit that we don't
get any say in what's in that unit. McLean is able to work with us.
to give us full customizability of the entire box.
So they have developed a very close relationship
with the post office.
And normally when you mail a flat rate box, which
is what our program comes in, it
would bounce around to a couple different hubs
in the lower 48 before actually making it to Alaska.
In the pilot, that was the experience.
And the challenge was that.
provided a lot of damage to the box.
And we found that by the time it made it up,
it took up to two weeks sometimes just to get to Alaska
and that there was a lotta damage.
So, when we brought into,
or when entered into the demonstration,
McLean was able to create a custom relationship
with the US Postal Service.
They create the boxes, roll them right onto a plane
and ship them directly to Alaskan.
So that we don't have to deal with the extra damage to the boxes incurred by bouncing around
It gives us it cuts the time for shipping in half
And it means that. We have a damage rate. That's below 1% on the box is
It's really an incredible relationship
Thank you
Representative Reffrich
Thank you chair for allowing me to be late at once again
This is an interesting program and I think I have
Just a couple of questions
The first is it possible to get a list of the school districts that these go to and that's obviously not not for right this second
But maybe emailed to the to The chair and to committee
I'd be interested to see that the second thing
And maybe I missed it in the presentation, but
The meal that goes home with children from school, or is it replacing meals at school?
Oh, yes, Mr. Reinhardt.
Do the chair.
So this is a summer program, and the meal boxes, each containing ten breakfasts and ten lunches, are mailed directly to the household,
either via a street address or a PO box.
As noted on the slide we had 31 school districts work with us last year as of today we have 27 signed on for this season and we still have a couple more weeks for them to sign on so we'd be happy to get you over the list of who will be working with this
due to spoilage and other things like that, I guess when you customize these boxes,
what type of food is generally in there, is it?
I assume it can't have food that spoils in it, so what's in the box, typically?
Thank you, yes.
Through the chairs.
Mr. Wannard.
Absolutely.
meet the USDA guidelines for the program, which is our primary constraint.
As mentioned earlier, we also have constraints around being able to ship shelf-stable food.
So you're correct,
we don't provide perishables in this box.
Each box, as mentioned, contains 10 breakfasts and 10 lunch, each with an eight ounce unit of milk.
And then the food items we focus on lower no sugar options,
which are surprisingly challenging.
in the packaged food space, and then we split our boxes
into three different menus that rotate.
So the child doesn't receive the same food every week,
and that's really important, because if you've got
the 10 meals every weekend, you'd be a little sick
and tired of it by the end of the summer.
And then, we work with our vendor,
because Alaska has some
Some waivers to allow a slightly different nutrition. We're allowed fewer carbohydrates and some more proteins based on cultural diet preferences
So that's why being able to customize our entire box with our vendor is so important
So we're able the add things like jerky and we are experimenting on some
options for
Shelf's table bread
And things that would be recognizable to a child, one of the things
that our vendor is very focused on is when possible and effective and efficient adding
brand-named items. Because oftentimes in our world we deal in generics and there's a dignity
in providing a Child with a serial option that they recognize. And so as mentioned all of our
The milk is oftentimes referenced as one of the most popular items in our survey efforts.
I guess more. Do I have time for follow-up?
I'm sure.
We have, it looks like about seven more slides and we have a hard stop at 9.30.
Just so you're, yeah.
Thank you.
So follow up.
So milk, is that powdered milk in there?
How do you, what does shelf stable milk
in the box look like?
Per the USDA guidelines, we're not allowed to use powdered milk, and we have been working
with the state office as well as USDA to see if we can get a waiver for a percentage
of that milk in the future being powdered, mostly for weight efficiency.
But currently, it's like an eight ounce boxed milk and it looks like a juice box, but it
Oh, I think I've seen that. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. I'm thinking you can't send perishable food
But then milk is in the box and my I was not computing, but I I
Thank, you it's kind of box with a little straw
Glue to the side
I have plenty of those when I as a teacher and I rushed for food
And if that meal is a pizza kids will eat it
Three times a week
That was her favorite meal of the day
So we do, I just want to do a time check, we have about 45 more minutes and it looks
like about seven more slides, so please continue.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
So one of the other programs that we've referenced previously is our SNAP program.
This is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
It is our most, as Anthony said, effective and cost-effective and fraud-proof program
in the state.
One in ten Alaskans access SNAP, it is critical to both urban and rural hunger.
It's supplemental as the name states, and so it's meant to supplement the household
grocery line, which as we know, with rising costs of child care, housing shortages, the
Often food is your most flexible budget line in your household budget, and that's where often people will make cuts
Which is why a supplemental assistance program is so critical
the formula for the amount of money that you receive for snap benefits is
Individual by individual or household by household. So there is it's it. It's pretty complicated. We're not going to get into it today
Division of Public Assistance is
Steeped in that so there that that where I would direct you for that formula
I wanted to highlight today that outside of the Anchorage and Matt Sioux area,
I apologize on this slide, total snap that's not redemption,
that is total-snap benefits distribution across the state.
So of 100% of snap-benefit distribution, which is $24 to $26 million a month,
63% percent of that, is outside Anchorage in Matt 2.
And that from last September.
The other thing we want to highlight about SNAP and again
We have a partnership with the DPA our SNAP Outreach team travels around the state to do application
Assistance for folks who maybe have trouble navigating the 28-page paper application or need some direction on the online application
There is a program that was enacted in the 1973-74
Food stamp act that allows SNAP benefits to be used for subsistence materials purchase such as
phishing gear
We don't have any numbers on the redemption rate of that,
but it is something that is unique to Alaska and exists,
and probably could be better marketed around the state.
Representative Reffridge.
Thank you, Chair.
A couple of the members of this committee
also sit on The Health and Social Services Committee.
So unfortunately, we are very interested
in the DPA side of This Knap question.
You have in the picture questions about SNAP, I mean we we've had lengthy conversations with the division about
Workforce shortages difficulty filling out applications. How much help
Are your staff members able to give members of communities on?
The follow-through and efforts needed to fill out those applications and get a response
For for the process through the chair. Yes. Thank you for question
The process is as an example one of our outreach assistants would go to an outreach event
Someone would approach the table say I want to I won't help filling out the snap application or I don't know
I need help right and so we walk through all the variety of benefits programs and but we do snap applications
assistance specifically and
We enter the application it goes to the DPA any any additional follow-up from even that same person later on requires a different interaction with D PA
So we are we're not the dpa. We do not act that way.
We are assistance to get the paperwork to
the DP a
Thank you. So after the
application we heard this week in Hess committee
At the average time to have a response is 43 days so
and then kind of walking through those issues with DPA,
a lot of those applications end up falling through the cracks.
So the food bank, once you have a person approach at a booth or something,
there's not a follow-up to them to check on them or anything like that.
Not individually with the client unless they reach out to us.
In the last couple years, really invested in our own technology and partnered with the
Anchorage municipality for a text-to-snap program, so there's a couple different ways
people can reach out to us, and that's both for application assistance and status checks.
So if someone, the same person, came to me and did an application assistant and followed
up a few weeks later, it would be a separate interaction with a same-person.
And you can text to snap, we are often texting back and forth with clients or email or phone
And last follow up, Madam Chair.
Follow up.
Thank you.
And maybe this is a question better offline, but I'll ask it just if you have input now.
What would be if could push a button and fix one thing with the SNAP application process?
What, what would you fix?
That is a big one.
Big question.
Big Question.
Excellent question to the previous question around federal regulation from Rep Story.
I think that that is key to how we can do this in this state.
We are beholden to regulations and policies of the federal government for the SNAP execution.
If I had the biggest magic wand in the world, it would look like streamlining across programs.
There are different criteria for a variety of assistance programs and it makes it very confusing and hard not just to apply but to stay current.
and compliant in your applications.
And so if you are on even two programs, Medicaid and SNAP,
which is the biggest overlap of public use,
public assistance use in the state,
you're an administrative master.
You have to be.
Otherwise, you get dropped from a program.
And, so, I think to decrease the burden on our clients,
and when we talk about the SNAP error rate,
it is largely...
It is 99% not on the client.
It's on an agency error, or it's a paperwork thing, right?
It a complicated system.
And so I would say streamlining in criteria,
streamlining in paperwork.
I know that we are investing in technology in the state,
so the other part of that is education for our neighbors.
How do we use the tools that
we're enacting across the State to make sure everyone understands
what to do because they want to stay compliant?
Thank you.
Thank you for that question and I just think about
You know my neighbors if it's a grandparent who recently had to take in grandchildren and like trying to
Go through that system and a lot of times our grandparents
You don't have they're not tech savvy. Don't the phone and that would be a hindrance or if its mom
who has
you know three kids and
trying to figure out you know standing in line to
figure this 28 page paper there's a lot of issues with the
program that's great question and anything we can do to help
these families in our neighbors.
All right next slide thank you miss Miller.
Thank you for the chair we we made some space here for Tfap if
there are any additional questions though.
Yeah looks like we have a question from
Thank you through Chair Dibert.
Ms. Miller, thank you and Mr. Reiner for being here.
You spoke a little bit about the TFAAP program earlier,
so I won't go too far into it,
but one of the things that you mentioned is that
you, the number of community partners you have,
you 70 community partner and 60 in rural Alaska,
and similar to representative reference,
refer just question if we could get a followup
on which communities that serve,
I would really appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thank You.
Great question.
Ms. Miller.
Thankyou through the chair for that question and we will certainly follow up with some finer
details.
It's also important to recognize that TFAP this program includes shipping and storage dollars.
We spend an enormous amount of money shipping things out of our warehouse.
We run our own little postal service in our warehouse and it is quite expensive as we
Oh, no, go ahead. Oh sorry. I'm going to turn over to Anthony to talk about what that means for our annual budgeting cycle.
I guess I did want, and before we move to Mr. Reinhardt, I wanted to, for the record, let's record reflect that we've enjoyed my rep underwood at 850.
Good morning.
Mr. Reiner. Thank you. Um, so the emergency food assistance program often referred to as T-FAP
is a food bank of Alaska's flagship program for service to rural Alaska.
When we call it a commodity program, we're meaning that we actually deal in physical poundage of food.
Um and just a kind of a contextual point here. The federal government
uses the USDA to purchase food to stabilize food markets.
And when they do that, they're left with a bunch of food on hand.
And that food is then distributed out to the different states
and then through food make network and other networks
to be able to serve our neighbors.
So we get, in Alaska, a certain percentage of the overall amount of
And that the total value amount is somewhere on the order of $700,000 a year and if that doesn't sound like a lot, you're right.
And then there's a separate provision in the program that we call bonus food at section 32
bonus is the official title. And that is food that has kind of extra in this system that isn't
part of our allotted seven hundred thousand dollars. This is a little in The weeds but I think it's
important just to understand how this program works. So 80 percent of all the food in
meaning that we never quite know what we're going to get or when we are going
to
get it. And so we deal with a lot of ebbs and flows in the program.
Some months we might have six different commodities that come up to Alaska,
some months, we
might
have one or two.
And so while as noted the program comes with shipping and storage dollars which allows us to
get that food out to many of the rural communities that we serve, it doesn't often come with enough.
On an annual basis, Food Bank of Alaska ends up covering about 30% of
the cost of shipping, and the storage and distribution out.
of rural Alaska. It's a really important program and it's as noted one of the only ones that
does come with that shipping portion. And so, you know, that's our role to play in making
sure that the program can be continued to ship and administered.
It is an important Program.
It stands up physical food infrastructure in communities and yeah, it is how we will continue
Thank you for that overview. We have a question from representative Freer
Thank You chair diver. Thank. You again, so you said that you deal with an actual like
number of poundage of food. Can you can you tell us what the pound is is how much
You said in Alaska receives a certain percent
from the rest of the United States. What what percent is that and
And what food bank of America covers 30% of cost
and shipping to Alaska, what does that figure look like?
I can speak in big numbers.
I don't have the specific exactly in front of us.
Alaska's allotment out of the total TVAP program
is something on the order of 0.7%
of total national programs, so it's very small.
And that is just our allotment.
Like I mentioned, we do get bonus food that would change that as a total.
And then, you asked about the 30% cost that food bank takes on.
I don't want to give you a wrong number, so please let us follow up on that.
Okay, thank you.
And the-
Sorry, follow-up?
Yeah, just a, and the poundage, if you can.
Yes.
Thank you
All right, please continue.
T-FAP dovetails very nicely into our disaster preparedness
and response, again, with it being our biggest program that
we're able to serve rural Alaska with.
That means there is a network already established
that we can leverage in times of disaster, which, unfortunately,
we have recently seen with Typhoon Holong and previous
to that Merbok.
So I'll turn it again over to our T programs officer
who was elbow, knee, hip, deep, and whatever
was going on last year.
Mr. Reiner. Thank you. Food Bank of Alaska plays an integral part in our emergency response network.
We are a member of the Voluntary Organizations Active and Disaster or VOWAD group.
We also work directly with the State Emergency Office of Coordination, the SCOC,
to make sure that food and water flow throughout the state where it's needed.
We've just had a very visceral experience, as noted,
with typhoon along, and it's devastating impacts
in Western Alaska.
We work closely with our partners in Bethel,
as well as downstream to 24 or so communities
that are currently continuing to experience the impacts
of the disaster.
Because of our connection, as noted, with Feeding America. Feedin America also works on a national disaster level.
And as we were planning and preparing for Typhoon Halong, we got spun up two containers of emergency food boxes,
as well as three containers, of bottled water.
And you can see some photos of that here in the slide, absolutely turning our warehouse into a swimming pool,
as you call it.
with all the the bottled water we brought up. We for this day continue to distribute those
resources out to communities in western Alaska and it has been a rocky process to make sure that
all this makes it out where it needs to be. The challenges in this space are many and I want to
On a regular basis, Food Bank of Alaska and our network of voluntary organizations are called upon
to respond to emergencies and they use that word very particularly. There are many situations
that if anywhere else in the nation would rise to the level of a disaster and for a number of
reasons they do not. Disaster as a legal definition allows a lot of resources to be allocated and used
emergency situation doesn't come with the same resources.
And so these range from breakup flooding in the spring
to fire evacuations in this summer
to a new category of challenge,
which is infrastructure issues throughout our communities,
things like water systems freezing or power systems
going down at any time of the year.
And when
When the state resources have not been declared, then responding to those emergency falls upon
our network, including Food Bank of Alaska, Salvation Army, Lutheran Social Services,
Catholic Social services, and Food bank of Alaskan as we do have a core competency in shipping and
logistics often plays the central role in collecting, organizing, palletizing and shipping those
So, that continues to be an emerging challenge to find the resources to consistently and
regularly respond in those situations.
Okay.
Representative Kerrick.
Thank you through the chair.
Can you talk about the, I get that disaster and emergency have different legal definitions
for a lot of things.
Our ability to for food banks ability
to provide response.
So if you could like give a little bit more context
to what can a food bank do when there's a disaster declaration
versus an emergency declaration?
Great question.
Thank you, Mr. Reiner.
Through the chair, thank you.
There's lot of ways to look at this challenge.
And I think what I would note is
Without the resources dedicated in a disaster,
we are one scraping food and resources from other programs
to be able to try to cobble together our response as opposed
to having a dedicated response.
The other piece as we've discussed already and all we'll know
is the cost and challenge of logistics into rural Alaska,
depending on where the emergency is.
We could be anywhere from $0.56 a pound to $2.50 a
pound, as we face currently in Kipnuk, Alaska.
And when you start to look at rate to destination,
that $1.2 to 2.5 a-pound, we just shipped $10,000 worth
of bottled water to Kippnuck.
And that got us a whole two and a half pallets of water.
the community. So the consumption rates and you multiply that by the cost of
getting it there sometimes become overwhelming and so while our communities
are experiencing sometimes a devastating emergency we're caught trying to figure
out how to find the money and the resources to send it to them and that
creates tragic delays and more than more
kind of left in the lurch by shipping partners
or relationships that didn't ultimately pan out
to cost of those situations.
Yes, follow-up comment, thank you.
To build on what Anthony is saying,
something that we learned last fall
during the government shutdown when there was a snap gap,
people didn t receive their snap benefits across the nation.
Food banks and pantries were filling that gap for folks,
per my previous comment about SNAP being most impactful
for every meal the Food Bank network puts out,
SNAP can provide nine.
So that gap was existing during the government shutdown.
What that meant was the entire food bank,
the national food banks supply chain was drawn down
and it was extremely stressed.
And as we all know, we are at the end of the road and beyond.
We were the last, were last stop on shipping.
And so we were very concerned about delays
and not just delays but quantities
where there are gonna be adequate quantities available.
Something that we have talked about is one of the challenges in responding to disaster
is being adequately prepared to efficiently and quickly respond, and Anthony has a great
pipeline analogy about making sure that, you know, it's harder sometimes to get going
It is harder to chug along rather than just ignite every time.
And so I'll say those analogies I brought today.
But it's important to recognize that often funding will come
with a spend down timeline.
And a disaster happens.
We receive an enormous amount of support,
but often there's requirements to spend that money down
with certain amount
of time for said disaster, understandably so.
It means we have to start everything again
which makes it's the same process and we could be more efficient and better
preparing in the state.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Okay, thank you, this is the last topic we'll talk about today.
And wanted to talk a little bit about our new food is medicine program.
So earlier this year there was an RFP that came out from the Department of Health for a
Just go back and forth a produce incentive and food is medicine resource and coordinating agency. It's a rough acronym
but that that's our title and
What this RFP was requesting was an entity in the state willing to engage in this space to facilitate again statewide collaboration
Take pulse on what is happening with food? Is medicine and we'll talk about that term in a second
And get into communities provide technical assistance
to figure out how to maximize nutrition incentive programs,
like SNAP, like WIC,
like these CSFP or senior boxes.
And there's been a lot of questions today
and we feel many of them about fresh food access.
We know that's a critical component
to being nutritionally complete
and you know it is really hard to do
to get access consistently to fresh foods across the state.
A couple of reasons that we know this program or this concept is needed in Alaska is one
in seven Alaskans are food insecure and that is a contributing factor to, or chronic disease
is contributing factors to food insecurity and vice versa.
and it's a huge public health cost.
Nationally, it is $5 trillion that we spend,
90% of that is spent on chronic disease management
and mental health issues.
And so there is a high price tag
on not having access to fresh food.
So we entered into a partnership with the state of Alaska
for the next 10 years to be this produce incentive
and food is medicine, resource, and coordinating agency.
And we'll be working closely to...
understand what we can do in the state.
So, we really kicked off our work in May of 2025.
Just a couple weeks ago we released this study, the Nutrition Incentive, and Produced Prescription
Food is Medicine's Statewide Landscape Assessment.
Talking about programs in Norton Sound, talking about YK Health and produce box models that
have worked before in the state.
And your questions today have already shown that we all understand it is difficult to
there are compounding challenges in how people access that economically and we've seen that
produce prescription programs are a creative way that have worked in many other states
to get people accessed to food and so a healthcare provider would screen someone for a variety of
conditions and increasingly there is food insecure criteria that healthcare providers from emergency
To my knowledge, we do not have a consistent set of that criteria across the state, which
would be helpful in streamlining the amount of people who could be better served by these
programs.
So that's what this landscape assessment talks about.
The next couple months are going to be about strategic planning for our group and taking
a concerted and intentional effort and move forward with healthcare providers in the
demographics access to fresh food. Five months ago we started a modest but
powerful pilot project called Growing Hope and we are packing 20 about this is
a box up here on the screen. 20 boxes a week of fresh ideally local and organic
food it turns out from our preliminary data collection that our eaters value
local over organic and these boxes are going to people who are in cancer
Our goal is to grow this program.
We have received many requests to serve a variety
of demographics, including seniors, people in palliative care
and the other ones that I mentioned earlier.
It's an exciting program, it is cool to see, we're getting pictures of people making meals
and this is supplemental for them.
There's a woman in our, who does, she volunteers every week in the food bank and she also receives
one of these boxes and we regularly get feedback on them from her and it's, a positive program.
And so we will be planning for the next nine years of how to increase access to fresh food
ideally through produce prescription.
The one thing I wanted to mention was as we look at the Rural Health Transformation
Program funding and some of you may be familiar with the Medicaid 1115 waiver process, food
is medicine is a tool that we could use in that program.
And the state is still in the process of figuring out how and when to apply for that
But that would allow us to get programs set up for Medicaid billing.
We would have the codes in place so that providers could refer patients to receive a box of produce as it was,
as if it were a prescription and Medicaid dollars could pay for that.
That is not new, other states are doing that, and it's something that Alaska could leverage.
The last point I'll make is programs like this for food is medicine are reliant on a robust supply chain that gives us access to fresh food.
this program will work better if we can make a more robust food system in the state.
We currently do not have enough growers to grow enough food to meet our demand as Alaskans
in general.
And so that is that we are part of our food systems.
We're not just recipients.
We are demand.
I want to like this idea, but I have kids, and kids don't like produce and frankly neither
do adults.
For example, McDonald's tried salads for a few years and then the CEO of McDonald said
we're not going to do salads anymore.
Why?
Because nobody buys them.
What's the way that this program helps people integrate produce into I think a lot of us
Don't know how to use produce and so you're either stuck with a
Item in the box that you have no idea how, to, use i think i don't
Know i've never talked to this committee about eggplants but i, don?
Know if anybody here knows what to do with an eggplant okay representative carrick does i
Do not
I don't, I wouldn't know what to do with half the things that probably come in the box.
And so you look at it and you say,
I want to eat that, but I have no idea how to.
How does this help people not throw half of the thing in a box away?
Thank you for that question through the chair.
You and everyone else is asking this question because we all understand that Brussels sprouts are tough.
We had a funny instance, we had our produce delivery a couple weeks ago and one of our
warehouse workers received the food and checked everything off and there was something missing
and I said, what happened?
Why didn't we catch this?
You know, he was like, I grew up here.
I don't know what fennel is.
Like, it was just, there is a general lack of awareness.
Also, you should roast your eggplant.
It's delicious though.
Thank you.
Um, so what we've done for this specific program,
because this pilot is serving people in cancer treatment,
there's a cookbook by the American Cancer Society.
And it's divided by symptom or, or you know an issue
that would arise from getting treatment.
And so there are recipes that align with the foods
that we use.
And we offer, we highlight recipes every week.
We change the produce every weekend.
We get feedback every weeks from folks asking for,
you know, I'd like more fruit.
I like, more vegetables, garlic.
Things need to taste good, point blank, right?
Everyone needs to eat food that tastes good.
And so we're looking at herbs.
The soup mix, the dehydrated soup conversation
from earlier has come up in this conversation around how to
how to make those vegetables last a little bit longer for folks and so spices we need to spice
our food so that we are paying attention to that and getting feedback but you cannot just offer
vegetables without a bit of guidance and the other part of that is even if you know how
to cook to your point earlier, Reptiber, if there is a mother of three cooking takes a ton of time
right so, that's something we're also exploring in how decrease that burden.
The other part of this is the social behavior and normality of cooking for some folks, right?
You're going through cancer treatment and the folks who do have the energy to cook.
It's a little thing that they can do. They don't have to go to the store,
but they could make their own meal or their caregiver. These boxes are packed such that
they cannot support two to four people a week. So caregivers wellness is equally as important as patient wellness in this program.
Thank you for that.
And I know when I'm not feeling well, if I am sick, soup is the best thing and if you
have access to moose or caribou, my grandma used to make rabbit stew, it's the
best.
You know, you could take what's in here and then make a big pot of soup and either share
You know save it in some way. So that kind of goes back to the preservation and the importance of just educating
It's a lot of educating so yes to respond to that. Thank you for that comment. I
Food is culture food is community food. Is our history and it is our future. It is not just kale
Right, we're not Just eating lettuce and calling it good
This is food
Is is integral to everything that we do and everybody eats which means everybody can understand these programs
To your point about moose, one of the really exciting things
we can do with this concept in this state
is Alaska Fayette, right?
So we know that vegetables are good,
but what do we actually eat up here?
And we, a couple months ago,
kicked off the Food is Medicine Coalition,
statewide network that we are still building
of, again, healthcare providers,
anybody working in the food system
because it takes our entire supply chain
and healthcare chain to make something like this happen.
What does food is medicine mean for us?
What is it mean to incorporate and highlight traditional foods
in this program?
So we are actively having that conversation.
It's not for, as I said earlier, it's
not us to define.
It is for Alaska to Define.
And here we go, we're on the way.
Beautiful.
Representative Schwonke.
Thank you, through the chair.
I really appreciate the, you know, this last half.
building sustainability for families and rural Alaskan food security is really where we need to
be going. And traditionally the food bank in my mind has always been a place where people can go
to fill a gap when they're having trouble and not completely replace the Food Model for a family.
If you've ever been to rural villages the smaller,
you'll find that spices are not a big thing,
whether it's white fish in the oven or it is dry meat,
but it kind of highlights that point of,
vegetables are great for some things,
but if you look at traditional diets,
they're very high in protein and healthy fats.
So I hope that maybe the program can start to look
at that, but my.
Question is about the program you had kind of mentioned so the timing I'm kind
of curious on the funding. He said that you started a program your you know your 10-year
partnership with the state so obviously that's already started and I am kind
of serious of the Program that, you mentioned the Health Healthy Program. I wonder if you could
that kind of started this or precipitated the 10-year partnership the food is medicine
and then how is this going to tie in potentially with I'm assuming that the
food bank is interested in applying for the real health transformation fund grant in some way
shape or form to try to figure out how to build this capacity because the goal is to create healthier
families and and healthier bodies going forward it's not just solely to purchase food and put it
Yes, thank you through the chair all great points excellent questions. I would love to see you at a coalition meeting
These are these are the things we're actively talking about
I think that we are talking
about moving from a proactive or from
a reactive model to a pro-active model and
Sometimes we talk about that as shortening the line at the food bank right now
We feed the lion right and so we need to get fewer people in that line and
You know, increasing positive health outcomes through access to food is a way to decrease that in the long-term short term
We have people we need to feed every day, but this is is smaller but more, you know intentional long term approach
The for the overlap of so this money first of all is from the CDC
It's coming through Department of Health. It is for 10 years
It has seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Which is not a lot of money to do all of the things that we aspire to
Do and that have been tasked to?
So there will be, we are looking for supplemental funding if the state, you know,
as collectively we need to decide how we're prioritizing food security and health through food access in the
state. There are a variety of ways to do that. RHTP funding is, should be a part of that formula.
You know I know the State is working to get out the specifics of how to apply.
The RHTP parameters, we are not allowed to spend money to buy meals directly.
However, if we're piloting, it is a pilot material, is my understanding.
And so as long as there is sustainability function to these, whatever we've pitching in RHTP,
it has to eventually be able to pay for itself or sustain in some fashion without R HTP funding
after it expires after five years.
Well aware, I believe this will likely be a public-private solution as many of the things
R-H-T-P-R. It's going to take a lot of people to make this happen.
Thank you. Thank You. I love your word, Alaska-Fi it. And when I think of RHTP, like maybe,
you know, creating an Alaska cookbook where rural communities highlight foods from their
different areas on how they can integrate, help from food bank and from there communities,
formulating in my mind, but maybe further discussions on the web or the Zoom meetings.
You said, did you mention coalition? We do. We have a monthly coalition meeting that anyone
can go to. It is open.
We also have listserv. If you don't want to do any homework, we can just keep you updated.
Thank you, Miss Miller. And yeah.
Just to follow up on that, your distributed cookbooks would be amazing and we have some examples
of that.
ANTHC's store outside your door program has been an amazing resource for showing people
easy access to all different types of subsistence foods preparation and it's got to be a yes
and.
If you have increased access of vegetables, how can we use these and elaskify it and
It is 9.23. Any final thoughts before two? All right.
Well, thank you. I think we're ahead of schedule, so that's good.
Thank you so much for being here today.
I know my food bank and Fairbanks is beacon and our South Fairbanks and
our community and feeds a lot of folks and takes care of us.
Thank you for your great presentation and all the work you do to help keep
Alaskans fed across the state and
I look further. I looked forward to further discussions on the solution of food security
That completes the agenda for our meeting today again a big thank you to miss Miller and mr. Rhinart
My office will be in touch with you
For I think we are going to transmit some emails and information to the committee members
Um, and I will be in contact with all of you for a schedule for next week.
The time is 9.22 AM and this hearing is now adjourned.