Last week’s national poll results on food stamps should make Washington legislators take notice.

The poll found overwhelming support from voters for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, known universally as food stamps.

Along with tens of thousands of Washington children benefitting from SNAP, more than 12,000 children in our state depend on a form of food stamps called State Food Assistance – one of the vital programs lawmakers may cut.

The poll, conducted in the second week of January, is a strong indication that cutting SFA would be enormously unpopular:

State schools superintendent Randy Dorn joined the Children’s Alliance this week to ask school officials to think about how kids start their day: with their minds on their studies, or on their empty stomachs?

Members of our staff joined Superintendent Dorn and the outstanding educators and students of Auburn’s Washington Elementary School Monday morning to demonstrate a simple route to academic success: school breakfast.

The Children’s Alliance, Dorn and other anti-hunger allies have launched the statewide Fuel Up First with Breakfast Challenge. The Challenge aims to increase participation in school breakfast programs by 50 percent over the next two years.