Our partners at the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty (BCHP) recently released a statement applauding Congress including “two significant provisions in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 omnibus spending bill… that establish a permanent Summer EBT program and create a nationwide non-congregate option for summer meal programs in rural areas without traditional summer meal sites.”
BCHP’s statement also noted that “improving access to summer meals for school children in rural areas paves the way for an expansion of the ‘Meals-to-You’ program, a demonstration project between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and BCHP.”
Carolina Hunger Initiative partnered with the NC Department of Public Instruction, local school districts, BCHP, and others on bringing the “Emergency” version of Meals-to-You to North Carolina in Summer 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. More than 1.6 million meals were delivered to more than 13,000 children from 20 rural school districts across North Carolina as part of the Emergency Meals-to-You program.
Carolina Hunger Initiative joins BCHP in appluading the new provisions for summer meal programs, and in excitment for the possibilities of innovative methods to reach kids with healthy meals in future summers.
Read more about North Carolina’s participation in the Emergency Meals-to-You program.
Read Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty’s full statement.