Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Post

We applaud D.C. officials for joining Maryland and Virginia in announcing they will implement USDA’s new Summer EBT program! In D.C., 80,000 children will be eligible to receive Summer EBT benefits, which will provide $40 per month in federally funded grocery benefits to help families purchase food while school is out of session. This will have a huge impact on families in our region, because we know that: 🍎 For too many kids across our region, school may provide the only nutritious meals they receive on a given day and when school is out, those meals go away. 🍎 The average family grocery bill goes up by hundreds of dollars each month over the summer when kids aren’t in school. That can strain household finances, particularly in a region like ours with a high cost of living.   🍎 Families are disproportionately affected by food insecurity. Households with kids are still 60% more likely to struggle accessing enough food compared to households without kids. We're thankful that this summer, families in our region will have another resource to support them in accessing the nutritious food their kids need to grow and thrive! #SummerEBT #foodinsecurity

More momentum with basic needs.

With summer officially here, 36 states, tribes, and territories are participating for the first time in the new, permanent Summer EBT program, also known as SUN Bucks! ☀ Newsweek shares a great summary of the program, which will provide qualifying families with $120 per child to help pay for groceries and keep kids fed during the summer months when school is out. Learn if your state is participating in this vital program: https://lnkd.in/ezkunXEj

Food Insecurity is a significant factor in student absenteeism For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students are from low-income families. 51% of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade were eligible for the federal program that provides FREE and REDUCED-PRICE lunches. This lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty but the explosion of needy children in the nation’s classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials, and social researchers. Even in wealthy Sarasota County, 52% of children were eligible for FREE LUNCHES-an an indicator of food insecurity at home meaning that they don’t have consistent access to sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food. Our Club in partnership with AAll Faiths Food Bank decided that we should help in alleviating this problem. In 2015 our Club/Foundation awarded AFFB a $60,000 five (5) year grant to place food pantries in all Title 1 schools in Sarasota County Schools We also committed to operating these pantries where needed. These school-based pantries are located on the school campus, making them a more readily accessible source of food assistance to families in need. They also try to be open at convenient school times so families can shop when arriving at school to pick up their children. So far, there are thirteen (13) school-based pantries in the program. Seven (7) of these are Title 1 schools. The top three (3) are Emma E Booker Elementary, Altavista Elementary School and Tuttle Elementary with Almost 95%, 92%, and 91% respectively of their students on FREE or REDUCED-PRICE lunches. The school district also provides FREE breakfasts to these schools. The Alta Vista Food Pantry was every other Thursday from 2:30pm-6pm excepting school breaks. We packed out food items for 60 families 2:30-3:30 and distribute from 3:30-6:00. During Holidays, we run Turkey Pantry, that operate like a regular Pantry, plus we would pack 125 Turkeys and Thanksgiving meal kits. #givingchallenge2024 #foodpantry #endinghunger #rotary #rotaryclubofsarasotafoundation #SarasotaCountySchools #allfaithsfoodbank #AltavistaSchool

Data driven decision making about Policy and Programming is critical to ensure we can address gaps and negative trends (and strengthen positive trends) more readily. It is important that we go beyond numbers for numbers sake. Instead we should analyze our data to help guide us. I would add that this is not just important with quantitative data but also recognizing the role of qualitative data Thank you for sharing.

Every child deserves access to food year-round, not just when school is in session. The U.S.-based SummerEBT program seeks to do just that by providing eligible families with $120 per school-aged child to help cover the cost of groceries during the summer. However, six out of the 37 states that have opted into participating in SummerEBT are experiencing delays, leaving many families without adequate access to the food needed to keep kids healthy. We urge states to support families and address these delays to ensure no child goes hungry. https://bit.ly/3WiQCKb

A great follow-up to my last post: "The poor can't keep up with the paperwork; that's how they get kicked off benefits. And that's done on purpose. That's a feature, not a bug, of these particular types of policies. The bureaucracy of proving that you are holding on to 20 hours of work... that's where so many people fall through the cracks." While millions of families wait on Capitol Hill to determine how much (or how little) they’ll receive in SNAP & WIC benefits, they need our help to find the emergency food resources they need NOW. Lemontree connects neighbors facing food insecurity to the free food in their backyard through an online directory and a tech-enabled helpline, and we serve over 4,000 users every day. I always say that food insecurity is a puzzle, and we're just a piece of it. Government assistance is another crucial piece, and this article does a great job of exploring the impact of these policies, including on the local economy, in a fresh format: https://lnkd.in/exEwvVjY

Here's the #fridayfive: 1. A shout out to Brian Darr for bringing this article in the The New York Times to my attention. Providing food to kids who need it in the summer makes sense, but what kind of food? Without additional benefits tied to the $40 such as discounts on fresh produce, meat, etc., how far will this $40 stretch and how well will kids be fed between school years? https://lnkd.in/gtUiB-93 2. I remember how excited I was to get my first summer job. Not because I wanted to work during the summer but it granted me freedom and cash so I could do more with the time I had off. Are summer teen workers making a comeback because Gen Z sees the value in having that freedom or because their parents are backing off funding their lifestyles or due to general economic pressures on both teens and families? https://lnkd.in/gbS6btQG 3. We've got age restrictions for certain venues based on what's served or the entertainment offered, and we know some restaurants have tried being adult only (with varying degrees of success). How about restaurants that simply don't want young-adult drama as is the case in this article featured by the The Food Institute? It's interesting, and if there have been problems I don't blame them for taking this tact. How broadly could this type of policy spread? Discuss... https://lnkd.in/gkNRQ6bp 4. Just for fun, I have to say I love these kind of lists. it reminds you how long some of the products we take for granted now have been out and how innovative they must have seemed when originally introduced. https://lnkd.in/geWXP75m 5. Honestly, one of my favorite people is Ken Toong, and I look forward to seeing him every year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Culinary Conference. This year is no different, so let me or Mike Kostyo know if you'll be there so we can say hello! https://lnkd.in/gs7M6Vuh #trends2024 #innovation #consumerbehavior #consumerinsights #schoollunch #generations #cpg #restaurants #foodservice #foodandbeverageindustry #menumattersllc

At Share Our Strength, we’re proud to launch #NoKidHungry’s CEO Pledge to End Summer, a national movement rallying CEOs across industries to invest dollars, raise awareness and use their voices to help feed more kids throughout the summer months. We arrived at a pivotal inflection point when Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, bipartisan legislation that allocates funding to provide kids with summertime meals. This was a huge milestone in No Kid Hungry’s long standing fight to expand access to summer meals for kids. But federal legislation is just the beginning. By committing to this pledge, CEOs, and their companies, are supporting our collective effort to ensure communities have the resources they need to implement the new USDA summer meals programs and increase the number of children receiving summer meals from 2.8 million to 30 million. We believe this is the type of collective action that will get us closer to ending summer hunger and making #NoKidHungry a reality. Join us at NoKidHungry.org/ceopledge

Great initiative as always.