NJ interfaith organizations, local businesses come together to feed hungry children

On August 4, 2018, the ONE Project, a faith and community coalition that addresses social needs through education and volunteerism, hosted the 2018 NJ Hunger Project at Robbinsville High School in New Jersey.

The ONE Project, led by Aanya Gupta and Ashley Stamboulian, working with Feeding Children Everywhere, brought together over 1,600 community volunteers and packaged 131,328 meals for hungry kids in New Jersey. 

Volunteers packaged ingredients for a lentil casserole meal created by nutritionists at Feeding Children Everywhere. The meal, which consists of red lentils, rice, dehydrated vegetables, and pink Himalayan salt, is nutritious, non-perishable, and best of all, only costs 27 cents per meal. The ONE Project team raised the money for the meals through the help of over 50 local businesses and community organizations, and donations from over 170 generous individuals.

The meals were donated to Mercer Street Friends Food Bank and other partners and will be distributed throughout New Jersey.

These meals will specifically target summer feeding sites and the “Send Hunger Packing” program, which is part of Feeding America’s National BackPack Program. Both of these programs are designed to target low-income children in Mercer County who struggle to afford food when they are out of school. 

These meals are particularly impactful considering that Feeding America’s research project, Map the Meal Gap, shows that almost 270,000 children in New Jersey or 1 in every 7 children are food insecure.

Trump nominates Prof. Aditya Bamzai to Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board

The White House has announced that President Donald Trump intends to nominate Aditya Bamzai to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

If confirmed to the position, the Indian American Virginia attorney would serve for the remainder of a six-year term that will expire Jan. 29, 2020.

Bamzai is currently an associate professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law.

There, he teaches and writes about civil procedure, administrative law, federal courts, national security law and computer crime.

He joined the University of Virginia School of Law’s faculty as an associate professor in June 2016. His work has been published and is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the George Washington University Law Review and the Missouri Law Review, among other journals, according to his bio.

He has argued cases relating to the separation of powers and national security in the U.S. Supreme Court, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, D.C. Circuit and other federal courts of appeals, it said.

Before entering academia, Bamzai served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as an appellate attorney in both private practice and for the National Security Division of the Department of Justice.