A Program Designed to Help Texans Feed Texans Sees Continued Success

Lawmakers created the Texans Feeding Texans program back in 2007, by allocating nearly $20 million to help supplement efforts of local service agencies in providing meals to the disabled and elderly across Texas. Since the inception of this program, and as one of the original stakeholders, Texas Association of Counties (TAC) has played an active role in promoting this program and trying to help counties stretch their dollars.

Throughout the years, TAC has written articles and reports relating to Texans Feeding Texans. The most recent survey report shows how much counties were spending on the average in feeding and servicing its most vulnerable population.

The Texans Feeding Texans program is administrated by the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA), and the information provided in the chart below is the most current information released by the agency. As noted in the chart, the highlighted light green column indicates the number of counties that participated each year.

Fiscal year 2018 marks the third highest number of counties (161), along with fiscal year 2016. The good news is that well over 60 percent of the counties have participated in the program each year, and $51.7 million has been awarded over the past five years. It is also interesting to note that the highest number of meals served – 13.6 million – occurred in fiscal year 2018.

Something that is not noted in the chart is that TDA also made available $75,000 to help feed folks that were impacted by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.


In addition, the map below shows which counties participated in the program in fiscal year 2018.

For more information on this topic, please contact Paul K. Emerson at (800) 456-5974.