This commentary is by Richard and Gail Butz, who live in Bristol.
If you enter a school or youth center in Vermont, you are likely to see backpacks stuffed, not with books, but instead with food to carry kids over the weekend when school breakfasts and lunches are not available.
And do you remember the school buses that were used to deliver meals to kids during the pandemic when the schools were closed? In Bristol every Friday, folks line up at the Have-a-Heart food pantry to pick up donated food to enable them to make it through the month.
These are ordinary folks, our neighbors, most with jobs, who have inadequate means to provide for their families. This directly impacts hungry kids who have a harder time concentrating, resulting in poor academic performance that could haunt them for the rest of their lives.
The American Rescue Plan was enacted in March 2021. The bill did the following:
- Increased the child tax credit for one year and made it available to families monthly from July through December 2021.
- Extended Pandemic-EBT (electronic balance transfer accounts) through the summer of 2022.
In December, Congress failed to pass the Build Back Better Act, which would have extended the expansion of the child tax credit for one year. So the credit has now expired and the summer EBT will also expire at the end of this summer.
The summer nutrition program under the Build Back Better would have provided a $65-per-child grocery benefit. In July 2020, the Brookings Institution concluded that the summer EBT program reduced child hunger by 30%. Soon it will be gone.
According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the Build Back Better Act, H.R. 5376, would enable 154 eligible schools (49%) in Vermont to offer free meals to all their students through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. In the 2021 school year, 56 schools in Vermont adopted community eligibility to offer free meals and under Build Back Better the number could increase by 98 additional schools. But the Senate failed to pass the act.
So what can we do? First, we need to thank Sens. Leahy and Sanders and President Biden for their steadfast support for these programs. Then we need to ask them to find a way to either pass Build Back Better with these nutrition provisions intact, or pass standalone legislation that continues these important programs that support our kids and our country’s future.
Sen. Leahy’s Washington phone number is 202-224-4242. Sen. Sanders’ number is 202-224-5141. President Biden’s email contact is: whitehouse.gov/contact.
Do it today so we can begin to build back better now. As persons of faith, and members of nonpartisan Bread for the World (bread.org), we just called our senators and emailed the president.
