There’s a bill in the South Carolina Senate that, if passed, would give all SC public school students free meals every day. Sponsored by Senator Katrina Shealy (R-District 23), Senator Stephen Goldfinch (R-District 34), Senator Mia McLeod (D-District 22) and Senator Marion Kimpson (D-District 42), S.148 seeks to ensure all students get free breakfast and lunch by providing guidelines for eligible schools to participate in the USDA Community Eligibility Program (CEP). It also establishes a state-level reimbursement program for those schools that are not eligible for CEP and extends the lunch period to 30 minutes.
“This bill addresses multiple issues that schools, students, and parents are facing these days,” says Meg Stanley, executive director of Wholespire. “I’m talking about school budgets, administrative workload, hunger, poor grades and behavior, school lunch debt, food shaming, social pressures and added financial stress for parents.”
74% of children are income eligible for federal nutrition programs (at or below 185% of poverty)
For the last two years, parents didn’t have to worry about paying for school meals and school administrators didn’t have to worry about tracking and collecting lunch money. During COVID-19, the USDA enacted national waivers that allowed many schools to provide free meals and get reimbursed by the federal government. Now that the waivers have ended, schools are now returning to collecting breakfast and lunch money, parents are having to decide how to pay for and prepare lunches and students with debt are being served a crusty sandwich instead of a balanced hot meal and getting picked on by their peers.
“For too many students, eating breakfast and lunch at school is the only time in their day that they get a nutritious meal,” says Stanley. “If we want to improve the quality of education in South Carolina and make it equitable, we have to start somewhere and that’s with the bellies of our students.”
Breakfast and lunch are important to every student’s health and classroom performance. Nutritious meals provide energy that fuels the brain and helps with attention span, which influences test scores and grade-level advancement. When a child is hungry, it’s difficult to pay attention to anything else.
In 2022, Wholespire published a blog called Everything you need to know about the Community Eligibility Program. It makes the case for eligible schools to apply for CEP. The same benefits of CEP can be applied to S.148. If passed, here’s how schools, families and students will benefit from receiving free meals at schools:
Benefits for Schools
Eliminates unpaid school debt. Every student gets free breakfast and lunch. Families don’t pay and administrators don’t have to worry about collecting money and managing accounts.
Reduces administrative burdens.
Improves school nutrition staff morale. Staff focuses more on nutritious meals and less on the nutrition budget.
Can generate revenue for school nutrition budgets. Oftentimes, CEP leads to an increase in breakfast and lunch participation, which increases revenue for the nutrition budget.
Can make it easier to serve meals in the classroom. Teachers only need to count the number of meals being served to students in their classroom rather than tracking free, reduced, and paid meals.
Benefits for Families and Students
Improves student attendance and advancement. A study published in the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition found significant benefits for students attending CEP schools, including higher attendance rates and more students advancing beyond 10th grade.
Fights hunger. The same study mentioned in the previous bullet also found students attending schools with CEP were nearly 3 times less likely to be food insecure.
Promotes equity and reduces stigma. CEP eliminates the out-of-pocket costs for families and reduces the stigma or embarrassment some students may feel by participating in the meals program. CEP also eliminates school lunch shaming, as no student can be turned away or given an alternative meal from failure to pay.
Reduces stress for families and students. Families with tight food budgets can rest assured that their child gets nutritious meals at school, reducing financial strain at home. Students don’t have to worry about paying for meals either.
Advocating for health in all policies is a priority for Wholespire, whose mission is to provide communities with proven and sustainable approaches that lead to increased access to healthy choices for ALL people. If you want to advocate for S.148, we encourage you to become a Wholespire advocate.
You answered our call for help with securing funding in the SC House budget for the SC Department of Social Service’s (DSS) Healthy Bucks program. Now, we need your help with ensuring Healthy Bucks and an upgrade to the SNAP processing system are included in the SC Senate budget.
DSS has requested $5 million in the 2023-2024 budget to expand the Healthy Bucks program, which allows families to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at participating farmers markets and roadside stands. DSS has also requested $8.7 million to update the system they use to run Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. DSS uses an outdated mainframe system to determine SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) eligibility in the state and to process payments to retailers when SNAP recipients buy groceries. Because of the age of the system, which processes about $1.8 billion worth of SNAP payments each year, DSS cannot make updates or improvements, which poses significant risks to the state.
The SC Senate Finance Committee is meeting next week to discuss the allocation for the DSS requests, and we would love for the members of that committee to hear from you before they vote on these requests.
Do you live in one of the SC Senate Districts listed below? If you do, please call your senator any time between now and Tuesday afternoon (April 4) and let them know that you hope they vote in favor of the DSS budget requests. If you have personal stories related to the Healthy Bucks or SNAP program, please feel free to share those.
We’ve created a script to make it easier for you! Talk to your legislator or leave a voicemail and follow up via email.
Step 1: Phone Call
Call your senator if they are listed below. Use the telephone script below to convey the message. Leave a voicemail, if prompted.
Telephone Script
Hello Sen. [Name], my name is [Your Name] and I am one of your constituents. I understand that the Senate Finance Committee will discuss the DSS-requested Healthy Bucks budget appropriations in the coming days and wanted to let you know that I hope you vote to support the $5 million request for the Healthy Bucks program and the $8.7 million request to start developing a new economic services system to process SNAP and TANF benefits. By expanding the Healthy Bucks program and upgrading the processing system, families across our state will have greater and timelier access to nutritious produce and local farmers will have improved economic development opportunities.
[If speaking directly to the Senator]:
Are you committed to supporting the DSS-requested Healthy Bucks and processing system appropriations in committee? *answer* Thank you for your time.
[If leaving a voicemail]:
Again, I hope you’ll consider voting to support the DSS-requested Healthy Bucks and SNAP processing system appropriations. Thank you. [Feel free to leave callback information if you’d like.]
Step 2: Follow-up Email
Did you leave a voicemail? Follow up with an email to ensure your message is received. Use the message we’ve created for you to send.
Follow-up Email Body
Hello Sen. [Name], my name is [Your Name] and I am one of your constituents. I left you a voicemail today, but am following up via email to ensure you get the message. I understand that the Senate Finance Committee will discuss the DSS-requested budget appropriations in the coming days and wanted to let you know that I hope you vote to support the $5 million request in the state budget for expanding the Healthy Bucks program and the $8.7 million request to upgrade the SNAP and TANF processing system. By expanding the Healthy Bucks program and upgrading the processing system, families across our state will have greater and timelier access to nutritious produce, which has long-term health and communal benefits and local farmers will have improved economic development opportunities. Again, I hope you’ll consider voting to support the DSS-requested appropriations. Thank you. [Feel free to leave callback information if you’d like.]
Things are underway at the statehouse for the new legislative session and one of the first things we are working on is the Department of Social Service’s (DSS) Healthy Bucks program budget request. The Healthy Bucks program allows Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients to obtain additional fresh produce at participating farmers markets. DSS is requesting $5 million in funding for the Healthy Bucks program in the budget this year. The SC House Ways and Means Healthcare Subcommittee is meeting this week to discuss the allocation for the DSS Healthy Bucks request, and we would love for the members of that subcommittee to hear from you before they vote on this request.
Do you live in SC House Districts 74 (Rep. Rutherford), 82 (Rep. Clyburn), 91 (Rep. Hosey), 108 (Rep. Hewitt), or 118 (Rep. Herbkersman, chair)? If you do, please call your representative any time between now and Wednesday afternoon (Jan 25) and let them know that you hope they vote in favor of the DSS Healthy Bucks budget request. If you have personal stories related to the Healthy Bucks program, please feel free to share those.
We’ve created a script to make it easier for you! Talk to your legislator or leave a voicemail and follow-up via email.
Step 1: Phone Call
Call your representative if they are listed below. Use the telephone script below to convey the message. Leave a voicemail, if prompted.
Telephone Script
Hello Rep. [Name], my name is [Your Name] and I am one of your constituents. I understand that the Healthcare Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee will discuss the DSS-requested Healthy Bucks budget appropriation in the coming days and wanted to let you know that I hope you vote to support the $5 million request in the state budget. By expanding the Healthy Bucks program, families across our state will have greater access to nutritious produce, which has long-term health and communal benefits, as well as economic development opportunities for local farmers.
[If speaking directly to the Representative]:
Are you committed to supporting the DSS-requested Healthy Bucks appropriation in subcommittee? *answer* Thank you for your time.
[If leaving a voicemail]:
Again, I hope you’ll consider voting to support the DSS-requested Healthy Bucks appropriation. Thank you. [Feel free to leave callback information if you’d like.]
Step 2: Follow-up Email
Did you leave a voicemail? Follow up with an email to ensure your message is received. Use the message we’ve created for you to send.
Follow-up Email Body
Hello Rep. [Name], my name is [Your Name] and I am one of your constituents. I left you a voicemail today, but am following up via email to ensure you get the message. I understand that the Healthcare Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee will discuss the DSS-requested Healthy Bucks budget appropriation in the coming days and wanted to let you know that I hope you vote to support the $5 million request in the state budget. By expanding the Healthy Bucks program, families across our state will have greater access to nutritious produce, which has long-term health and communal benefits, as well as economic development opportunities for local farmers. Again, I hope you’ll consider voting to support the DSS-requested Healthy Bucks appropriation. Thank you. [Feel free to leave callback information if you’d like.]
