Childhood hunger — an issue that impacts more than 33,000 children in Montgomery County, according to Feeding America — drew elected leaders from the county and state levels to Gaithersburg on Martin Luther King Jr. Day for a roundtable discussion.
“People wake up, and they don’t know if they’re going to have enough food to eat,” Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando said at the event. “It’s unjust, and it’s wrong.”
The event was led by Manna Food Center, a food bank serving Montgomery County, at the Robertson Park Youth Center.
One of the main issues discussed by the panelists is that some families are earning too much money to qualify for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and free and reduced-price meals, both through the state of Maryland, but they do not have enough money to provide enough food for their kids.
“The threshold for eligibility for school meals is not well aligned with the cost of living, and so that is true of all the different programs that are funded at the federal level,” said Heather Bruskin, director of the county’s Office of Food Systems Resilience. “We need to close these gaps, and that is really a tremendous challenge that we’re hoping strategically to address.”
Bruskin said that there are a couple of programs that will be implemented this year to help address the gap. For example, Bruskin said school-based grants will fund schools seeking additional assistance and resources for after-school or weekend meals.
Jennifer Rodriguez of Gaithersburg spoke during the event through a translator. She said that while her two children, a 6-year-old and a 10-year-old receive free breakfast and lunch at school, she must supplement their diet by picking up food at a local church.
Also, Bruskin added that the SNAP Outreach program will help train people at schools that work with families and assist them in registering for SNAP benefits.
“People need birth certificates, social security cards, immigration documents, pay stubs, tax reports and utility bills,” to register for these programs, said Rae Turner of Gaithersburg. “For someone to get that together and everything, there are not enough people to walk them through it.”
Difficulty registering for SNAP was one of the points highlighted in the Montgomery County Strategic Plan to End Childhood Hunger, which was implemented by the County Council in 2022.
Bruskin said that while action at the county level is crucial, additional funding from the federal government is necessary to make a significant change.
“A lot of the resources that we depend on as a local government to support our community are waning,” Bruskin said.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D), who’s a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a video message that he recognizes the need for more funding to fight food insecurity in Maryland and across the nation, and that he is working to have that implemented into the 2024 federal budget.
“Access to healthy, affordable and nutritious food is a basic human necessity, and that is why these efforts remain a top priority of mine as we work to pass the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills and the appropriations bills for the next fiscal year,” Van Hollen said.
Julie Yang, a Montgomery County Board of Education member, explained that addressing childhood hunger is a priority now more than ever because more children are impacted than in previous years.
From 2017-2020, the percentage of students who qualified for the free and reduced-price lunch program was around 33%. This number increased during the 2020-2021 school year to 38% and again in the 2022-2023 school year to 43%, according to the Maryland State Department of Education.
Many of the panelists discussed how addressing food insecurity plays into the larger theme of fighting for justice and equality.
Manna Food Center’s Executive Director Jackie DeCarlo said that King’s dedication to this idea is why the food center and local officials hosted the event on the Civil Rights leader’s birthday. She closed the event by highlighting a statement King made in 1964:
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”