CalFresh Outreach Social Marketing Toolkit Spring 2022

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as CalFresh in California, is one of the most effective ways to combat childhood hunger in America. The CalFresh program supplements a family’s food budget in order to ensure they are getting adequate nutrition.

CalFresh plays a critical role in reducing hunger and poverty and improving health by providing nutrition assistance to millions of low-income households through an array of vital services. CalFresh has the power to reduce hunger, support health, expand opportunity, and even respond to disasters. CalFresh provides monthly benefits to help households purchase the food they need if eligible.

No Kid Hungry knows that schools and community organizations are trusted messengers and an important source of information for families, and marketing is one of the most effective tools for increasing awareness and engagement.

When kids are enrolled in CalFresh, they get the food they need to succeed both at home and school. But many newly eligible families may not know they qualify or how to sign up.

The maximum CalFresh benefit allotments amounts can vary on a month to month basis. For more information, visit your County’s Department of Social Services website.

This toolkit was created to help you get the word out to families about CalFresh food benefits. This toolkit includes a variety of ready to use assets to help you quickly and easily communicate with families. Scroll down for social media images and sample social media posts. You can also click on this hyperlinked table of contents for instant access to any section (see below).

Assets are available in 13 languages, including Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, English, Farsi, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Korean, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. These images are designed for Instagram and can be used for Twitter and Facebook as well. Click on any image to expand, then right click and select save to desktop.

• Arabic
• Chinese - Simplified
• Chinese - Traditional
• English
• Farsi
• Haitian Creole
• Hmong
• Korean
• Russian
• Samoan
• Spanish
• Tagalog
• Vietnamese
• More resources

MORE INFORMATION & RESOURCES

*The maximum CalFresh benefit allotments amounts can vary on a month to month basis. For more information, visit your County’s Department of Social Services website.

No Kid Hungry's Center for Best Practices is comprised of program, policy, and innovation experts committed to ending hunger in the U.S. by providing information and resources to stakeholders, conducting programmatic and policy research and analysis, and testing promising ideas to identify emerging best practices.

CALFRESH IS NOT A PUBLIC CHARGE!

Learn more in this guide for immigrants and share community-facing resources from Protecting Immigrant Families at: https://protectingimmigrantfamilies.org/. Text “Benefits” to 650-376-8006 to learn more about how people with different immigration statuses could be affected by CalFresh eligibility.

Articles on the Impact of Public Charge:

• New Report Shows that Fear in Immigrant Communities Kept Children from Getting the Food They Needed
• Nuevo Reporte Indica que el Miedo en la Comunidad Inmigrante Hizo que Muchos Niños No Recibieran la Comida que Necesitaban

Talk to a local expert on public benefits and immigration. Immigrants who can get CalFresh benefits still need to meet the regular CalFresh income guidelines.

For more information and resources visit the CalFresh Program website. This resource was designed to assist county eligibility workers and other partners who provide services to the public.

If you are a program operator at a school district or community organization, we offer resources and technical assistance. If there is language not available in this toolkit that you would like to see, please visit our website or contact us at NoKidHungryCA@strength.org.