Marshall County Food Access Committee members are once again facing the reality of the loss of federal money intended to feed low-income youth.
Repeating actions from 2024, Gov. Kim Reynolds opted out of the United States Department of Agriculture Summer EBT program. If she had decided to utilize the program, $29 million in federal funds would have been used to feed 245,000 children, roughly 4,000 of whom live in Marshall County.
The Summer EBT program would have brought around $500,000 to Marshall County for food assistance for the youth. Each child would have been provided with a $120 EBT card to cover the months when they are not in school.
Committee member and Marshall County ISU Extension Director Amy Pieper said she tends to be an optimistic person, so was hopeful the governor would not turn it down again. However, she was not surprised.
“I think people were expecting Gov. Reynolds would waive the summer EBT again,” she said. “We’re greatly disappointed because it would have brought $29 million in food assistance to youth who are going hungry during the summer time because they don’t have school-provided meals.”
Fortunately, the Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD) does provide breakfast and lunch to children during the summer. Unfortunately, Pieper said not all of the youth can utilize the service.
“Because of transportation issues, it’s not greatly used,” she said. “The buses aren’t running, kids aren’t getting to the location, parents are working so they can’t drive kids to the schools just for lunch. The EBT program would have allowed parents to select foods their kids could prepare and like to eat in their own homes.”
Last year, Reynolds said the reason she denied the program was the lack of focus on nutritional food when childhood obesity is climbing. Instead, Reynolds submitted a request to the USDA for the state to use the funding for monthly food boxes for families who earn 200 percent of the federal poverty level. The federal agency denied the request because of the proven success of the EBT program, and families would have to rely on transportation to obtain the food, which they do not have to worry about with a card.
Pieper is expecting the governor to submit the waiver again for the food boxes.
“If the USDA accepts that in lieu of summer EBT, that is not a guarantee,” she said. “If she does not get the waiver accepted by the USDA, there will not be food boxes this summer. If it does get accepted, I don’t know what type of funding support the state of Iowa will have. I don’t know if there’s a plan in place by the governor or anyone else on how to put the food boxes together and how to distribute them. Even at that point, there’s going to be distribution issues with transportation. How do you get the boxes to families? Then you add on top of that, is there food in the boxes that these kids can prepare themselves, want and like to eat?”
Last year, after her waiver was rejected, Reynolds did make $900,000 in Iowa Department of Education grant money available to expand feeding sites. Grants were given to 38 entities, none of which were in Marshall County.
Pieper said the next Food Access Committee meeting will be in March at the Marshall County ISU Extension office. She encouraged anyone — residents, churches, businesses, organizations — to attend, and added they will try to determine the best course of action to get food to hungry kids.
“I think the committee will look harder at how we can do a community food drive and how that food is distributed,” Pieper said. “Right now, the food would go to the little pantries and the Emergency Food Box, but how do we get it directly to the youth in the community?”
Donating food to the little pantries and the Emergency Food Box is another thing people can do, she said. There are 10 pantries in Marshalltown and one in almost every surrounding community, and food is available to everyone, regardless of income.
“We were just all hoping [Reynolds] would go forward with it,” Pieper said. “What can we do now? Let’s move forward.”
Food Access Committee to determine summer course of action after Reynolds’ denial of federal funds
Marshall County Food Access Committee members are once again facing the reality of the loss of federal money intended to feed low-income youth. Repeating actions from 2024, Gov. Kim Reynolds opted out of the United States Department of Agriculture Summer EBT program. If she had decided to...
