Media Contact:
Brittani Riddle
briddle@frac.org
202-640-1089 ext. 3039
Statement attributable to Luis Guardia, president, Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)
WASHINGTON, June 21, 2022 – The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) commends the bi-partisan legislation introduced today by Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Ranking Member John Boozman (R-AR) and House Education and Labor Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Ranking Member Virginia Foxx (R-NC), to help support children, families, schools, and child care providers as they struggle to recover from the fallout of the pandemic. Provisions in the Keep Kids Fed Act would increase reimbursements to schools and child care, support access to summer meals by extending the summer waivers, allow children eligible for reduced-price school meals to receive free school meals, and streamline access to healthy meals for children in family child care.
We and our network of anti-hunger advocates all across the country call on Congress to pass this legislation immediately as time is running out. The child nutrition waivers that have been available since the onset of the pandemic are set to expire on June 30. This legislation would help mitigate the impact of the loss of the waivers and also would be critical to supporting children’s access to summer meals and meals at childcare.
The provisions in the legislation are only temporary and do not go as far as we would like, but they are a critical first step to help shield some of the impact of inflation, supply chain disruptions, and labor shortages.
Still, more must be done. FRAC looks forward to working with Congress to make much-needed, long-term improvements to the child nutrition programs to more fully address our nation’s hunger crisis.
Hungry children can’t wait.
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The Food Research & Action Center is the leading national nonprofit organization working to eradicate poverty-related hunger and undernutrition in the United States. To learn more, visit FRAC.org and follow us on Twitter and on Facebook.
