After the federal government turned down Iowa’s Summer EBT program, the state is adding more sites to its Summer Meals for Kids program.
With federal American Rescue Plan Dollars, the Department of Education gave $900,000 to add 61 new places across the state to its summer meal program. Before this, the state turned down $29 million in government funds for a program that would have given kids who were hungry money to buy food.
Luke Elzinga, chair of the Iowa Hunger Coalition Board, said that putting more money into the summer meal program will at least help make it easier for more people to get food by putting it in more places.
“Those summer sites are a great resource for those kids and families to help make sure that our kids are getting the nutrition they need over the summer months,” Elzinga said.
The state is focusing on the program because Governor Kim Reynolds was worried about how long it would last and how healthy it would be for Summer EBT recipients.
Elzinga said that summer EBT would have helped about 250,000 hungry kids in Iowa. The summer meal program, on the other hand, is harder to get to because some people don’t have the means to get food every day.
“Some of those barriers are still going to exist even with these expanded number of sites,” Elzinga said. “We still expect that over half of school districts in Iowa will still not have any summer meal sites in 2024.”
In cities like Cedar Rapids, meals are only served at set times, but in some rural places, you may be able to get food to go.
Iowa’s News talks to the Iowa Board of Education. The federal government made those rules in a law that was passed last year.
“Hunger doesn’t take a summer vacation, and we’re going to have a lot more families turning to food pantries in the coming months, especially as, you know, Iowans don’t have access to summer EBT benefits,” Elzinga said.
Next week is the first day of summer sit-down meals in Cedar Rapids. Breakfast is from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and lunch is from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. You don’t need an ID, and kids under 18 get free food and drinks.
