BY ALFRED LUBRANO

Mayor Nutter endorsed yesterday an anti-hunger platform cobbled together by local advocates who have joined for the first time to bolster their fight against hunger.

Nutter, who was on his way to Washington after the morning meeting with advocates at City Hall, vowed to lobby Congress on expansion of food-stamp benefits in the stimulus bill.

Advocates have long said that boosting food-stamp benefits was one of the best ways to help struggling Americans, especially now, as more and more middle-class and working-poor people slip into poverty.

Nutter also said he was confident that the Obama administration would overturn the Bush administration's "unwise" decision to end the Universal Feeding program in Philadelphia.

The program, unique to this city, has offered students in 200 of the school district's 280 schools free breakfasts and lunches without the usual paperwork. More students eat when their families don't have to fill out forms, studies have shown.

In place for 17 years, the program is scheduled to be ended at the close of the 2009-10 school year.
"Children can't succeed in school and life if their stomachs are empty," Nutter said. "It is simply unacceptable for there to be hunger in America."

Nutter also praised the school district's plan, begun this year, to offer free breakfast to any student regardless of economic background.

"By making all children eligible, the school district is taking a critical step," he said.

Hunger advocates have gone out of their way to praise Nutter recently. Bill Clark, head of Philabundance, the largest hunger-relief agency in the region, said that he has met with Nutter administration officials more frequently in recent times than he did with anyone from the Street administration for the duration of Mayor John F. Street's tenure.

While no one thinks Nutter can end hunger, advocates believe that they have an ally in the mayor. Combined with President Obama's pledge to end childhood hunger by 2015, advocates say they are hopeful.

Nutter met briefly yesterday with national hunger expert Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

Saying he wanted to see Universal Feeding restored in Philadelphia and instituted throughout the country, Berg added, "The federal government has a vital national interest in ensuring that every school district in the country has the financial means necessary to make school lunches and breakfasts available universally to all schoolchildren."

The Nutter administration is also working to streamline the food-stamp process. There are around 100,000 Philadelphians, many of them elderly, who are eligible for food stamps but do not access them, Nutter senior adviser Pauline Abernathy said yesterday.

A large reason is the onerous process of filling out food-stamp forms, she added.

"The mayor is asking the Obama administration to do a food-stamp program like Universal Feeding, without excessive paperwork," Abernathy said.

If enacted, Philadelphia may become the only city in the country with such a program, she added.