While hunger may have been less visible before coronavirus, it still afflicted far too many Americans. It was solvable then too. Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners and a wise leader of the faith community told me, “This virus is revealing so much of what was true before.”
Unlike the tragic shortage of N-95 masks and ventilators, we have
no shortage of food in America. Nor is there a shortage of effective food assistance programs. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), school lunch and school breakfast, WIC and summer meals all exist and
are available for low-income families that need them.
But too often bureaucratic and logistical barriers make them hard to access. Today those obstacles are putting the health and the very lives of vulnerable families in jeopardy.
For the past 10 years our No Kid Hungry campaign has knocked down many barriers that existed between a hungry child and a healthy meal. We made enormous progress, adding more than 3 million eligible kids to school breakfast, as just
one example.
Over the last month we’ve had to start anew.
Though massive in scale, feeding children during the pandemic is a solvable problem as well.
With almost all of America’s schools closed, affecting the 22 million kids
who rely on free or reduced price meals, we’ve figured out how to work with school districts and community organizations across the entire country to find alternate ways to feed kids. Sometimes it means distributing food to parents outside of schools, or having bus drivers drop meals off instead of picking kids up. Jennifer LeBarre, the school nutrition director for the San Francisco Unified School District, told me
in a recent interview, “We’ve always had to figure out how to feed kids. Just not this way.”
We’ve
met the challenge by helping to quickly pass new federal and state laws and regulatory changes to give communities more flexibility and funding for needs,
ranging from equipment to boots on the ground. By making emergency grants to 348 organizations and counting — mostly school districts and organizations in rural communities — we’ve been able
to help the most vulnerable and the hardest to reach.
And even when additional flexibility has not been legislated, Americans are acting on their own, often showing more common sense than their government. Schools that
may only be reimbursed for feeding children are nevertheless finding ways to feed adults in need within their communities as well. It is what this crisis, decency and humanity demand.
If we are smart enough and strong enough as we navigate the coronavirus, we will go forward with these important truths in mind:
First, pandemics don’t discriminate, but that doesn’t mean their impact is felt or suffered equally. It isn’t.
Low-income Americans and especially those of color do not always have the access to resources, health care, nutrition, housing and safe spaces that are essential to protecting the health of their families. Yes, we need to commit to a vaccine that eliminates the coronavirus. But as David Leonhardt of The New York Times
pointed out in his analysis, we also need a comprehensive campaign to finally end inequality. In the meantime, we must move aggressively to protect those whose lives are being hit hardest by this crisis.
Second, the best way to feed Americans is not handing out emergency food packages at schools but ensuring that they have sufficient resources to feed themselves. This starts with increasing SNAP assistance, which is the most effective way to feed families at scale during this crisis. An increase of just 15%
would help offset the significant loss in income and soaring unemployment resulting from Covid-19-related closures and disruptions.
Third, we already know the threat of food insecurity, declining health and financial distress
will become even greater for children and low-income families during the summer when school is out of session. We should take what we’ve learned in the last few weeks and apply best practices through the end of the school year and during the summer to ensure kids and families don’t experience that slide into hunger we know all too well.
And finally, when it’s safe for our nation’s children to go back to school, we should categorize school meals as essential supplies, like textbooks and pencils. With tens of millions of Americans losing jobs and filing for unemployment benefits, our children will need this support as never before and for quite some time.
Despite the crisis that currently surrounds us, hunger remains one of our most solvable problems — before, during and after the coronavirus.
