South Carolina’s sweltering summer months are often the busiest time of year for the Lowcountry Food Bank, an organization that gives meals to children year-round. When school lets out in June, the group opens nearly two dozen U.S Department of Agriculture-funded feeding sites in Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Yemassee and other coastal communities where low-income families can bring their children for a meal during the day.
Last summer, the food bank provided more than 18,000 meals to families. But there are far more children in need than the sites can reach, said Misty Brady, the community meals coordinator at the Lowcountry Food Bank.
“There’s definitely a need out there, and the struggle is finding the gaps,” Brady said. “Because there’s families that aren’t getting those meals because transportation is a huge barrier.”
States had the opportunity this summer to participate in a program this year intended to fill those holes. The Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program — Summer EBT for short — will give eligible low-income families an additional $40 per month, or $120 per child, to pay for groceries. The summertime program is a modification of a pandemic-related emergency food benefit and is intended to make getting food easier for families who cannot get to a feeding center.
But South Carolina is one of 15 states that missed the January 1 deadline to opt in for this year. The state also has one of the highest rates of food insecurity in the nation; 15 percent of residents reported they were uncertain they could meet the food needs of all their household members at some point during the year, compared to 11 percent nationwide.
During a press conference in January, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said the state decided not to participate in Summer EBT because officials are trying to move past pandemic aid.
“That was a COVID-related benefit. We’ve got to get back to doing normal business. We just can’t continue that forever, but we’re still continuing all the other programs that we have,” McMaster told reporters. Some leaders in other states couched their opposition to the program in political terms — Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi said that the program is an expansion of “the welfare state”—while others said they didn’t have the staffing or money.
But other summer meals programs in South Carolina are struggling to keep up with demand. The state’s biggest program is run by the USDA and relies on sponsors, like the Lowcountry Food Bank, to distribute the food. But each year since 2019, fewer sponsors have signed up to participate, going from 78 in 2019 to 45 in 2023, according to the South Carolina Department of Education.
A little more than a week after the Summer EBT deadline had passed, the South Carolina Department of Education sent out a request asking for more volunteers.
“Our 2024 goal is to increase the number of meal sites to allow more children access to nutritious meals this summer,” said Virgie Chambers, SCDE’s deputy superintendent of district operations, safety and student wellness, in a statement. “To do that, we are currently searching for more community partners, especially in rural and low-income areas.”
But there are other barriers to the program as well: Transportation is a common problem for families trying to access the meals, and since the sites are open during the morning and early afternoon, parents who work during those hours are unable to make the trip.
South Carolina participates in another, similar USDA program that allows some schools to continue providing meals for students who receive free and reduced-price lunch during the summer months, but the barriers for families remain the same – they must find a way to the school building during the day to get the meals.
“The summer meals programs really only reach a portion of students who are eligible,” said Kelsey Boone, a senior child nutrition policy analyst at the Food Research and Action Center. “So the Summer EBT program really comes in to fill the gaps that are left by those traditional summer meals programs.”
For both programs, families typically have to eat on-site, with the exception of rural areas, which were given the option last year of letting families take several meals home at a time.
Lisa Davis, senior vice president of Share Our Strength and its No Kid Hungry Campaign, is hopeful more states will opt in to the program next year because of barriers that made it harder for states this time around: The USDA did not release its rules and guidelines for Summer EBT until a few days before the deadline to opt in. And, although the federal government is covering the cost of the program’s benefits for families, states now have to pay for 50 percent of the administrative cost to run the program.
“I’m actually reassured as we’re talking to states. We’re not hearing a lot of, ‘We don’t want to do this, ever.’ We are hearing a lot of, ‘We’re not quite sure how we’re going to do this, we don’t have all of the pieces together,’” Davis said.
It’s too late for South Carolina to participate this year, but Brady, with the Lowcountry Food Bank, would like the state to consider joining the program next summer.
“That is my hope, that they see that the need is there, and the tremendous positive effect it will have on families,” Brady said.
This story about Summer EBT was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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