At a time when an estimated 25,000 South Dakota children struggle with hunger, the state decided against applying for a federal program that would have provided $7.5 million to feed low-income kids this summer.
The federal funding was available through a program called Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT). It would have helped an estimated 63,000 South Dakota children receive healthy food during summer 2023.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture funding effort began during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Congress recently approved it as a permanent program.
The extension was seen as a victory for families and groups that advocate policies to keep children fed. Rather than requiring families or children to travel to specific meal sites to get food, the P-EBT program provides payment cards to families so they can purchase eligible healthy foods at any participating store at any time.
Earlier from SD News Watch: More South Dakota students going hungry after federal free meal program ends
The offices of Gov. Kristi Noem and South Dakota Department of Education told News Watch the state is not applying because summer meal programs are already offered and it’s too challenging to administer the program.
That decision drew the ire of Sioux Falls advocate Cathy Brechtelsbauer, who has fought hunger for decades as leader of the organization Bread for the World.
“Our kids in South Dakota are missing out on $7.5 million worth of food, and it’s not like they’re necessarily getting it someplace else,” she said. “This is like taking food away from kids, and I hope we don’t want to be that kind of state.”
South Dakota is one of seven states that did not apply.
South Dakota previously took part in food program Noem spokesman Ian Fury did not provide News Watch an interview with the governor but did send an email with a statement.
“Federal money often comes with strings attached, and more of it is often not a good thing,” Fury wrote. “Because of South Dakota’s record low unemployment rate, our robust existing food programs, and the administrative burden associated with running this program, we declined these particular federal dollars.”
When asked to explain the administrative challenges surrounding the program, Department of Education spokeswoman Nancy Van Der Weide said the state found it difficult to obtain enough information about children to administer the program effectively, even though the state did participate in Pandemic EBT in 2020 and 2021. DOE and the Department of Social Services were responsible for applying to the program.
“Implementing the program was difficult because South Dakota is a state that prioritizes local control more than most states,” Van Der Weide, who also declined an interview request, wrote to News Watch in an email.
“Because of this, information about individual students is not shared to state government entities en masse. This made it very difficult for the state government to get enough details to adequately administer the program.”
Brechtelsbauer was shocked that the state was rejecting federal money based on perceived challenges in administering the program.
“That just blows my mind,” she said. “How can we think like that when we’re talking about kids needing food? Why can’t we handle things as well as 43 other states?”
Thousands of meals provided each summer Van Der Weide pointed out that the South Dakota Summer Food Service Program provided children with more than 303,000 meals and about 20,500 snacks at 83 disbursement sites during summer 2022.
That federally funded summer meal program is part of a larger ecosystem of efforts to get food to children during the summer, including by statewide organizations such as Feeding South Dakota and local efforts run by Boys & Girls Clubs and other charitable organizations.
And yet, according to Feeding South Dakota, about 24,750 South Dakota children, or about 11% of the school-aged population, remained “food insecure” in the state in 2022.
The group defines food insecurity as “the consistent lack of food to have a healthy life because of your economic situation.”
Feeding South Dakota provided about 8,800 meals to children in Sioux Falls and Rapid City through its backpack program over 10 weeks this summer. It also offered food to needy people in 91 other communities through monthly visits by its mobile food unit, according to Stacey Andernacht, communications director for the nonprofit.
Van Der Weide did not answer a question posed by News Watch about whether the state would apply for P-EBT funding in coming years.
Hunger higher in rural and reservation areas Finding the money to afford healthy food, at a time when prices for food and fuel are on the rise, is difficult everywhere but especially challenging in rural and reservation areas of the state, Andernacht told News Watch in an email.
“Rural communities do experience a higher food insecurity rate for many reasons – there are few grocery stores, transportation can be an issue, employment opportunities are less, and the logistics of getting food to these communities comes at a higher expense,” she wrote.
The increased federal funding for summer meals and provision of free meals to all public school students during the pandemic were effective at reducing hunger and food insecurity across the state, Andernacht said. Losing access to another food provision program could increase the hardship on South Dakota families struggling to make ends meet, she said.
When free meals for all public school students ended in fall 2022, the agency saw a 20% rise in usage of its mobile food pantries, which served roughly 13,000 families each month from July 2022 to June 2023, Andernacht said.
Students who qualify as low-income can still receive free or reduced-price meals at school. But the end of the pandemic free meal program caused many non-qualifying South Dakota children to go without meals at school or fall into arrears in trying to pay.
“We hear from those using our programs that without those pandemic-era benefits, and with the increasing inflation they are finding it difficult to afford household needs such as housing, utilities, and medication and also put food on their tables,” she wrote.
Source: sdnewswatch.org
Photo Credit: pexels-adam-sondel
Categories: South Dakota, Government & Policy