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ST LOUIS, MISSOURI--While the bureaucrats who run state food stamp programs gathered inside a St. Louis hotel to celebrate their 25th anniversary, leaders of groups from across the country gathered a few blocks away to discuss the program's problems.

"I don't see what they have to celebrate," said one participant in the action that took place September 17. Leaders from the Reform Organization for Welfare, Neighborhoods First Alliance, Working for Equality through Economic Liberation, Oregon Action, Illinois Hunger Coalition and the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, along with over a hundred food stamp recipients and others went after the directors of every state's Food Stamp Program at their conference in the Adam's Mark Hotel in St. Louis.

Leaders stormed into the Adam's Mark demanding a meeting with the president of the association, Susan Hall. Within 20 minutes, the leadership had a meeting with Susan Hall, her staffer Larry Goolsby, and the Illinois Director for the Food Stamp Program, Gary Terpstra. The bureaucrats agreed to work with the leadership to ensure better client access to the program. Groups are now working to get state hearings to address food stamp reform.

In July, ROWEL found out that the American Association of Food Stamp Directors was hosting a conference in August on Food Stamp fraud. ROWEL wrote the association asking to be invited so they could address another type of fraud in the Food Stamp program--when caseworkers deny people their right to participate in the program. The commission denied ROWEL access to the conference. So when ROWEL found out their September conference, ROWEL and other NPA groups decided to invite themselves to the event.

Issues centered on State Food Stamp Reform which, if implemented, would eliminate the many barriers the prevent people from using the program.

State reforms the groups wanted included shortening the length of the application--some states have applications up to 36 pages long, longer than federal firearms license applications or the forms required of applicants for a federally insured home mortgage.

They also want to decrease the number of times clients have to re-certify for the program--federal law requires once every 12 months yet some states require people to come in 4 or more times a year).

"Without the food stamp program my children and I couldn't survive," Sandra Ferrell a Moberly resident, ROWEL member and mother of 2 said. "I get disability and we still don't get near enough and have to beg for food to make it through each month--and that's with the food stamp assistance!"