PROVIDENCE – After ranking near the bottom in food stamp enrollment for years, Rhode Island has increased the number of eligible residents signed up for the benefit by more than 40 percent since 2006, the director of the state’s food stamp outreach program told Providence Business News.

Kathleen Gorman, director of the Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America at the University of Rhode Island, said more than 30,000 state residents have joined the food stamp program since 2006, which she described as “a phenomenal increase.”

The Feinstein Center has a contract to run Rhode Island’s Food Stamp Outreach Project, which is funded by the state and federal government to help increase the number of eligible residents who actually sign up for the program, which was renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, last October.

In addition to providing support to social service agencies, the center runs a Web site, EatBetterToday.com, and a toll-free hotline ((866) 306-0270) that provides more information on how to sign up for food stamps.

Gorman was reacting to a recent report by The New York Times that ranked Rhode Island fifth from the bottom out of all 50 states when it came to the percentage of eligible residents who signed up for food stamps in 2006. She said she wanted to show that efforts made in the intervening years to increase participation have paid off, and counter “the negative and outdated numbers” used in The Times’ analysis.

“As you might guess, we spend a lot of time trying to bust the myths that surround this program – and news about how ‘the state is doing so poorly’ really reinforces for people the negative stigma around the program and the fact that it is hard and difficult to get assistance,” Gorman said in an e-mail.

Food stamps are no longer actual stamps; recipients now receive their allotment on an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card, similar to a debit card. The federal government pays the full cost of the actual food stamps, and splits the cost of administrating the program with the state.

More than 100,000 Rhode Islanders are now enrolled in SNAP – or nearly 1 in 10 state residents – and they receive an average monthly benefit of $105 each, Gorman said. She also noted that, based on those numbers, the food stamp program puts roughly $10.5 million into the economy each month.

“Food stamps are like a vaccine that can prevent hunger,” Andrew Schiff, executive director of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, said in testimony to the R.I. House Finance Committee last year. Last May, he called on the state to set a goal of enrolling an additional 20,000 people in the program, a benchmark that has been reached in the intervening year.

The recession and accompanying rise in unemployment have increased SNAP participation significantly. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that food stamp enrollment nationwide set a third consecutive monthly record in February, with 32.5 million Americans signed up for benefit, Reuters reported. That was up 17 percent from a year earlier.

In addition, Rhode Island was one of five states that increased enrollment by more than 3 percent in February compared with the prior month, the department said.

Additional information on the R.I. Department of Human Services Food Stamp Program is available at DHS.State.RI.US and EatBetterToday.com.