The Declaration of the End of Hunger in America is a public statement, timed to the 250th anniversary of the United States, that childhood hunger in this country is unacceptable and solvable, and that every child deserves the chance to live, learn, and grow. Through the www.endhunger250.org website, we are engaging leaders across multiple sectors of American life, business, culture, associations, faith, education, healthcare, and social media.

There is no lobbying, no fundraising, no organizational commitment. You are invited as an individual. Your title and affiliation appear for identification only.

Change has never come from the many waiting for permission. It has always come from individuals who decided, one at a time, that this mattered enough to say so. That is what you are being asked to do: be one of those individuals, standing alongside leaders and everyday Americans from every corner of this country, in a declaration that hunger no longer has a place in the American story. If you agree, your name belongs on this historic document.

For those who want to do more, there is more to do: co-signing and forwarding invitations to peers, sharing with your network, and adding your voice by sharing why you signed at www.endhunger250.org.

No. Your name will appear on the public record at endhunger250.org as part of the historical archive of this Declaration. Submissions are reviewed before they appear publicly, so your name may take a short time to show up on the wall after you sign. It will not be sold, shared with third parties, or used for fundraising solicitations, marketing campaigns, or lobbying efforts. 

This is not a membership organization. There are no dues, no ongoing obligations, and no commitments tied to signing. You signed a historic civic statement. That is what your name represents, and that is all it will be used for.

We intend to present the Declaration of the End of Hunger in America with the list of signers to the new Congress in January 2027 to be entered in the Congressional Record, as well as make it available as a public historical record for the Library of Congress, state governments, media, and educational institutions.

The Declaration of the End of Hunger in America is a joint effort of the Albertsons Companies Foundation, through its Nourish the American Dream campaign, and a growing group of anti-hunger leaders and civic organizations who believe that the 250th anniversary represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change America's relationship with child hunger permanently. As part of that coalition, the End Hunger Network manages this national outreach effort and www.endhunger250.org, the online platform where leaders and the public can add their names.

No. The Declaration is explicitly nonpartisan. It is built around a shared value, that child hunger is unacceptable and solvable, not a specific policy position, and is designed to be signable by leaders across the political spectrum. Child hunger touches every community, every zip code, and every political district in America. The statement is built around shared American values, not policy prescriptions or party positions. Child hunger should not be a “wedge” issue, but a unifying challenge for America. It does not ask you to endorse any legislation, party, or administration.

That is precisely why your signature matters. This Declaration is not asking hunger relief professionals to declare that child hunger is solvable. They already know that. It is asking leaders across every sector of American life, business, healthcare, education, faith, technology, media, sports, government, and civic institutions, to say publicly that this is a shared national priority, not a problem that belongs only to the organizations already working on it.

Child hunger touches the families of your employees, your students, your patients, your customers, your community, whether or not it appears in your mission statement. The Declaration does not ask you to take on a new program or a new obligation. It asks you to state something true: that leaving children hungry in the wealthiest nation in history is unacceptable and solvable, and that you believe it is time to finish the job.

You are also not signing on your organization's behalf. You are invited as an individual American, and your title and affiliation appear for identification only, not as an institutional endorsement or commitment. You do not need board approval, a communications sign-off, or your organization's backing to add your name. This is your statement, not your employer's.

The Declaration does not rank who is important enough to sign. It records who was willing to say publicly, in 2026, that child hunger is unacceptable and solvable. National visibility isn’t part of that test.

Don’t rule yourself out. What’s been missing isn’t more expertise or more authority; those already exist. What’s been missing is voice: leaders from all sectors across this country actually saying, out loud and on the record, that this reflects their own values and priorities. Feeling unqualified is not the same as being unqualified; many effective, respected leaders feel this way privately, and it rarely reflects their actual standing. This Declaration asks whether you already hold this belief and are willing to say so. That’s what makes you qualified.

A consensus like this isn’t built by a few famous names. It’s built by volume and breadth: a hospital administrator, a community college president, a faith leader, a school board member, a student, a parent. Each signature shows this belief is held broadly, in ordinary institutions and communities, and not confined to a visible few.

Every signer appears on the same public record, listed the same way, by name and affiliation. Nothing distinguishes a national name from a local one. The record counts. It doesn’t rank.

If you lead people, serve a community, or hold a title or position that people trust, you’re who this is asking for. Consider what that already means: people follow your judgment, your organization depends on you, and how you respond to this issue shapes how others around you respond to it. You already have what this asks for. That is what leadership is, whether or not it comes with a national title.

And if you feel that none of that describes you: in this country, citizenship has never required a title to carry an obligation. Throughout this nation’s history, private citizens have stood up to proclaim and defend American values. They have changed history. That is still true for this generation. If you believe child hunger is no longer acceptable, that belief is the qualification to sign the Declaration.

This Declaration does not compete with or replace any of the important work already being done in communities and by dedicated organizations serving those populations.

Children are the starting point for a specific reason: a hungry child cannot vote, advocate for policy change, or otherwise change their own circumstances. Every other population this Declaration is not naming still benefits when the country's will to act on hunger grows. A coalition big enough to end child hunger is also a coalition capable of reaching everyone else who needs it.

A declaration is not a petition, a pledge, or a campaign. It is a public statement of what we hold to be true and what we refuse to accept any longer. That is precisely what this moment calls for.

History bears this out. The Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 did not change a single law on its own. It stated, publicly, that women were entitled to equality before the law, and the legal and political change that followed took decades. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 carried no enforcement mechanism either. It stated a shared standard, and nations have spent the decades since building their own laws and constitutions around it. In both cases, the declaration came first. The policy, the enforcement, the slow work of actually changing things, came after.

The original Declaration of Independence in 1776 was not a plan. It was a declaration of intent, a statement that changed what was possible by changing what was declared. The signers did not wait until victory was certain. They signed because the act of declaring, together, was itself the turning point.

We are not drawing a flattering comparison to the founders. They faced great personal risk as they announced and justified a political and revolutionary decision. We are borrowing the form because it fits: a further public articulation of enduring principles central to American values. Child hunger in America persists in part because no generation has ever collectively declared, at scale and across every sector of society, that it is unacceptable and over. This is that declaration.

The 250th anniversary year is a rare civic moment. Even though there have been and will be patriotic events and grand oratory, every institution, every leader, and every community in America will be asking what this country stands for at 250. That question creates an opening that does not come around often, and we intend to place child hunger at the center of that national conversation.

But the anniversary is the occasion, not the reason. The reason is that child hunger is happening now and is growing, in every state, in every community, and is far less visible than it deserves to be. The 250th anniversary gives us a moment of national attention. 

Three things, plainly stated. Child hunger in the United States is solvable. The tools to end it already exist. The only thing standing between where we are and where we need to be is the national will to finish the job.

It is not a policy platform. It is not aligned with any political party. It is a civic statement built around values that the vast majority of Americans already share, regardless of background or belief.

Because this Declaration is doing something that comes before policy, and that policies alone cannot do.

Specific goals, timelines, and legislative proposals all have their place. There are organizations doing that work with great skill, and this Declaration supports them. But every policy campaign, every nutrition program, every piece of legislation ultimately depends on the same thing: a public and political environment in which ending child hunger is treated as a genuine national priority. That environment does not currently exist at the scale it needs to. This Declaration is how we create it.

When Americans across every sector and every background have declared together that child hunger is unacceptable and solvable, the conversation about specific policies changes. Leaders who were reluctant become willing. Legislators who were indifferent become accountable. Institutions that were passive become engaged. The Declaration does not replace that work. It makes that work possible at a scale it has never reached before.

There is also a practical reason. A declaration that demands a specific policy attracts only those who support that policy. A declaration built around a shared value, that leaving children hungry in the wealthiest nation in history is unacceptable and solvable, can be signed by a Republican governor and a Democratic mayor, a faith leader and a Fortune 500 CEO, a veteran and a student. The wider the coalition, the greater the shift in public will.

Everyone, deliberately. We are contacting leaders who run companies, hospitals, schools, congregations, farms, newsrooms, city halls, nonprofits, sports teams, and labor unions, along with leaders in dozens of other fields across American life.

The breadth is the point. A declaration signed only by hunger relief professionals confirms what they already know. A declaration signed by a farmer, a pastor, a CEO, a coach, and a nurse, each with no reason to sign except that they believe it, is evidence of something larger: that this isn’t a niche cause carried by a few committed organizations, but a value already held across the whole fabric of American life. That kind of breadth is what turns a belief into a national fact.

Beyond leaders, we are inviting every American who believes this country can and should finish this job to add their name.

A declaration alone does not end child hunger. What it does is change the conditions in which child hunger can persist. 

• It removes the excuse of isolation. Right now, a mayor, a hospital CEO, a school superintendent, a corporate leader, each one might privately believe child hunger is solvable and unacceptable. But acting alone feels exposed. The Declaration gives them each other. When thousands of leaders have signed, the next one is not taking a risk. They are joining a consensus. The social permission to act expands dramatically.
• It redefines what is politically possible. Legislators follow public will, not the other way around. When the Declaration represents a genuine cross-sector, cross-partisan coalition of recognized leaders, it changes the political calculus. Hunger is no longer a side issue. It becomes a baseline expectation of leadership.
• It changes the internal culture of institutions. When a CEO signs, it sends a signal inside their company. When a university president signs, it signals to faculty, students, and donors. The Declaration becomes a reference point: we said this, now what are we doing about it? That internal pressure is where real institutional change lives. 
• It creates a self-fulfilling shift in what people believe is possible. Once enough credible voices declare that ending child hunger is achievable, it becomes harder to argue otherwise. The belief structure that sustains child hunger, the quiet assumption that it has always been this way, that it is too complex, that nothing really works, starts to collapse under the weight of the declaration itself.
• It builds a foundation for action that outlasts any single administration. By operating at the level of public will and shared declaration rather than specific legislation, the coalition remains durable across political cycles. The goal is a coalition strong enough to support meaningful legislative and policy action on federal nutrition programs in 2027 and beyond.

Right now, ending child hunger in America is treated as an aspiration. Indifference has kept it that way; as long as it remains someone else's problem, it stays exactly where it is. After a declaration of this scale, indifference is no longer an option. It becomes an expectation, and an expectation calls for a stand, not a shrug. That changes everything about how institutions, leaders, and communities respond to it.