The post Op-ed: Food and Moral Courage Are Needed to End Childhood Hunger appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>Of all the reckless ways for the federal government to save money, taking breakfast and lunch away from 12 million kids in 24,000 schools across the country has to be the most reckless. We could save even more by taking away books, pencils, and computers, but then kids wouldn’t learn much, would they? The same goes for taking away their school meals.
But this is what Congress is considering, through changes to an innovation known as the “Community Eligibility Provision” (CEP) which, ironically, was designed to achieve the very efficiency for which the Department of Government Efficiency is allegedly searching. CEP says that if 25 percent of a community’s kids are pre-identified as eligible for free school meals, then those meals ought to be available to all the kids rather than go through the bureaucratic expense and time-consuming paperwork of individual applications.
“I’ve seen first-hand how kids tune in once they’ve had their cereal, yogurt, or egg sandwich. . . . how their hands begin to shoot up to answer questions.”
The House-passed budget resolution directs the Education and Workforce Committee to cut $330 billion over the next decade, which is why Congress is contemplating saving money by raising the CEP eligibility threshold from 25 percent to 60 percent. That would reverse decades of steady progress since the admirals and generals who returned from World War II first recommended feeding kids at school so America would have stronger, healthier soldiers.
Since then, countless studies and statistics have documented the advantages to kids, schools, and the economy when students receive nutritious school meals. Attendance and test scores improve. Tardiness and disciplinary infractions decline. Even if there wasn’t such evidence, would there be any rational argument for not feeding kids? For almost 20 years now, Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign has worked with thousands of school districts and nonprofit partners to increase participation in school meals.
One signature strategy of moving breakfast from the cafeteria before school, to after the bell—either in the classroom or grab-and-go between classes—increased participation by more than 3 million kids. Schools represent a built-in infrastructure for reaching most of America’s children. And as former First Lady of Virginia Dorothy McAuliffe says, “Kids can’t be hungry for knowledge if they are just plain hungry.”
I’ve spent more mornings in cafeterias and classrooms than I can count. From Mrs. Diaz’s homeroom period on New York City’s Upper West Side to the sixth-graders in El Monte, CA and dozens of communities in between, I’ve seen first-hand how kids tune in once they’ve had their cereal, yogurt, or egg sandwich. Any classroom teacher will affirm what I’ve witnessed: how kids settle and focus, how their hands begin to shoot up to answer questions, how they start to work in small groups more cooperatively and effectively. There’s no fraud, no corruption, only kids being kids, and being our future.
I heard from one such teacher recently: “As a public-school teacher in South Carolina with a daughter teaching at a Title 1 high school in Boston, we see firsthand every day what a nutritious meal means to a child’s ability to grow and learn. This proposal is cruel and ultimately, quite foolish.”
Students reach out as well: “I was one of those kids that received free breakfast/lunch because our family was dirt poor, and I can personally attest to the complete inability to focus and learn when your stomach is growling so hard it’s cramping. Few things will better enable our children to be engaged and have a can-do attitude than a full belly.”
It’s telling that even proponents of the change have not put forth compelling arguments that school meals or the Community Eligibility Provision don’t work. Only that the funds are needed for more tax cuts.
It’s a shame to see national politicians injecting partisanship into food assistance issues that have historically had bipartisan support. At the state and local level, they still do. For example, just last month Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, signed legislation that passed the state legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support, providing students with free breakfast. “Free school breakfast will help ease the burden on families just trying to put food on their tables and make sure kids are fueled and ready to learn,” said Governor Sanders.
“Proponents of the change have not put forth compelling arguments that school meals or the Community Eligibility Provision don’t work. Only that the funds are needed for more tax cuts.”
Additionally, 112 mayors—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—have signed a letter to Congressional leaders urging them not to cut the food assistance for kids provided by SNAP. One in five kids in America receives SNAP, which provides the nutritious food needed to stay healthy and do well in school. Mayors understand this, given their close proximity to Americans affected by indiscriminate budget cuts.
There’s a role for everyone in reaching out to Congress to urge that they protect food assistance for kids. Seek permission to visit your local school’s breakfast or lunch program and share what you observe. Dare your elected officials to join you, and then see if they are in favor of cutting it.
Members of Congress who have never before supported cuts to food assistance programs seem to be doing so now, not because they believe the cuts are right or fair, but because they are fearful of political consequences. Too many leaders in business, finance, education, the media, and elsewhere remain silent.
Bobby Kennedy was right in 1966 when he said, “Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change.”
Childhood hunger in the U.S. is solvable. There is no shortage of food, only of moral courage. But it shouldn’t require much courage to speak up on behalf of kids.
The post Op-ed: Food and Moral Courage Are Needed to End Childhood Hunger appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>The post Op-ed: It Takes More than Food to Fight Hunger appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>The nation’s anti-hunger organizations have done a phenomenal job of feeding kids and families throughout the pandemic, helping to avert what could have otherwise been a calamitous hunger crisis. The Biden Administration’s recent increase in SNAP benefits, and new flexibility in the policies surrounding school meals and summer feeding, have also played a major role. But if you were paying attention to the alarming rates of food insecurity in this country before the pandemic, you know that averting a crisis isn’t enough.
This nation’s approach to hunger is at a crossroads. We have an important opportunity to prevent families from experiencing hunger in the first place. By mobilizing to extend the new Child Tax Credit beyond its December expiration date and increase access to the credit, our nation has the potential to lift more kids out of poverty and away from hunger, than it has at any other point in our lifetimes.
And this historic moment demands more than business as usual.
According to the latest Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, the first payment of the new fully refundable Child Tax Credit—as much as $250 to $300 a month for many families—has meant that parents have had less trouble affording food. Just over 10 percent of households with children said they sometimes or often didn’t have enough to eat over the previous seven days.
“That’s the lowest estimate since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and a huge drop of 3.5 percentage points” from a month earlier, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University told CNN recently.
Take a look at the websites of the nation’s leading food banks and you’ll see inspiring statistics about the millions of Americans fed, the thousands of community partners supported, and the countless pounds of food distributed. There’s a very sophisticated system in place designed to feed hungry children. It relies on individual and corporate generosity, and it also offers many companies sizable tax write-offs for donating unwanted and expired food.
Now, imagine if that help wasn’t needed.
That’s where bold programs like the Child Tax Credit enter the picture. With up to $300 more in their bank accounts every month, families can buy the healthful, culturally appropriate foods they need as well as other necessities, stabilizing them over time.
The pandemic has underscored the fact that it takes more than food to fight hunger—which is a symptom of poverty, racism, and inequity. In addition to the invaluable food assistance that anti-hunger organizations provide, there are at least three things every community’s hunger organization can do to have a more transformative impact on families:
1. Urge trusted community partners who connect directly with hungry Americans to help them access the Child Tax Credit. Like any new public benefit, awareness must be raised and technical assistance provided to ensure that the people who need it the most actually receive it.
2. Urge their supporters and beneficiaries to reach out to Congress to extend the Child Tax Credit, which will otherwise expire at the end of December.
3. Find other ways to address the root causes of hunger by supporting nutrition education, financial literacy, affordable housing, early childhood education, and a living wage.
Like many similar programs, Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign and our work increasing school breakfast participation have been successful at feeding kids in need. And when we see success, it’s tempting to stop there.
But if anti-hunger advocates don’t make the case that it’s not enough just to feed people, who will?
We can’t think of anything more tragic than a child experiencing hunger when the resources exist to prevent it, but their parents don’t know how to—or feel like they have a right to—access them.
Our experience with the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) supplemental feeding program, in which only 51 percent of eligible households participate, has taught us just how much work remains to be done even once an idea becomes law.
There are tens of thousands of brave and resourceful staff and volunteers working for organizations that provide emergency food assistance. They reach virtually every community across America and work in a commendably nonpartisan fashion. They amount to a virtual army that could make the idea of the Child Tax Credit a reality by advocating for its extension, raising awareness of its benefits, and steering eligible families to the assistance they need to enroll.
In the 35 years I’ve worked in this field there has never been an opportunity like this—and it may not come again.
The post Op-ed: It Takes More than Food to Fight Hunger appeared first on Civil Eats.
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