The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced a new effort funded by the American Rescue Plan to provide adequate nutrition to more than 30 million children over the summer. It’s an expansion of the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer or P-EBT benefits that helps low income school children gain access to meals they normally get during the school year. Minnesota Farmers Union President Gary Wertish says getting nutrition to those kids surfaced prior to the pandemic.
Wertish agress with Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack that the expansion of the P-EBT benefits over the summer is the first of its kind game changing intervention to reduce child hunger in the United States.
He says feeding children must be a priority and its everyone’s responsibility to see that gets done.
The P-EBT program was set to expire on September 30, 2021 but through the American Rescue Plan Act, benefits are now available for the duration of the pandemic.
