Michelle McCabe Runs for 28th Senate District

NEWTOWN, CT -- Michelle Lapine McCabe has announced her candidacy for Senator for the 28th District (which includes Fairfield, Newtown, Easton and sections of both Weston and Westport).

McCabe is currently the director of the Center for Food Equity and Economic Development (FEED) at The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport. She has been in that role since 2014, in which time she has grown the program from one that only allocated funds to food pantries and soup kitchens into a robust economic engine for low-income area residents centered around food.

"As the director of the FEED Center, I see first-hand the difficulties that residents face when seeking sustainable employment, or trying to start businesses, or struggling to navigate our inadequate infrastructure. I believe in our ability to have a prosperous state for all, but it is going to take hard work and innovative solutions," McCabe said in a release.

McCabe's stated top priority, were she to be elected, would be to expand the tax base by bringing more businesses and residents into the area. In order to do so, some of the solutions she is proposing include:

1. Enhancing and increasing the efforts of CT's Department of Economic Development,
2. Investigating a student loan forgiveness program for CT graduates based on continued CT residency,
3. Promoting the superior "quality of life factors that we have in such abundance,
4. Investing more in higher-education-industry hubs,
5. Training programs to improve our workforce (partnering with nonprofits to accomplish this),
6. Improving our Health Insurance Exchange program,
7. Honestly facing the problems with our challenged transportation infrastructure — on all levels.

Before her role at the Council of Churches, Michelle was at the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity where she worked on policy briefs for all levels of government around the country and developed a parent advocacy portal for improvements in school food. Prior to that, she was chair of the Fuel for Learning Partnership (FFLP), a committee of the PTA Council, which was dedicated to improving the quality of school food for all children in Fairfield, CT.