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A Push To Make Assistance Provided To Needy Families During Pandemic Permanent

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Assistance provided during the COVID-19 pandemic has helped Arkansas families who are struggling to get enough to eat, but advocates for those living in poverty say more needs to be done. The state has one of the highest rates of food insecurity in the U.S.

Joel Berg, CEO of the New York-based group Hunger Free America, says federal assistance over the last year-and-a-half has been beneficial and shows what permanent changes could accomplish.

“Because there was a massive increase in federal aid, a massive increase in SNAP benefits, what used to be called food stamps, a massive increase in the child tax credit, giving low income people cash, we really avoided nationwide and avoided in Arkansas wholesale starvation,” Berg said. “But we still have too many Arkansans choosing between food and rent.”

Federal funding for things like free school meals are authorized by Congress, but a Child Nutrition Reauthorization has not been passed in several years. Berg is encouraging U.S. Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas to use his position as the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee to bring it up for discussion.

“Other than the SNAP program, which is authorized by the Farm Bill, the child nutrition bill is the single most important anti-hunger bill domestically, and that's why we’re fighting for it so hard,” Berg said.

It was last reauthorized during the Obama Administration. Berg would also like universal child meals to be permanently funded, which he says would benefit at least 29 million children in the U.S.

Hunger Free America CEO Joel Berg speaking to a meeting of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance on July 19 in Little Rock.
Credit Michael Hibblen / KUAR News
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KUAR News
Hunger Free America CEO Joel Berg speaking to a meeting of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance on July 19 in Little Rock.

He says the expansion of takeaway meals provided by local groups like the Pine Bluff-based Targeting Our People’s Priorities with Service, or TOPPS, have made a real difference. The nonprofit group aims to help children from kindergarten to high school address problems of food insecurity and education.

TOPPS founder and CEO Annette Dove says there are a lot of families in need of support.

“We provide 12 programs with mentoring,” Dove said, “the pre-college and after school tutoring and our summer camps, job training and then our two feeding programs.”

During the most recent summer, Dove said TOPPS fed about 600 children. With a new grab-and-go program, she said parents and kids are able to pick up snacks and dinners after school.

The organization also provides emergency food boxes for families which include at least eight meals for the month.

“We do fruits and vegetables, canned goods, we do some meat and whatever we can provide for those families,” she said. “And what we see is a lot of grandparents taking care of grandchildren, and our numbers have almost doubled from when we first started,” which was in 2002.

Dove says if parents have an emergency before the food giveaways, they can call and the organization will prepare a box with what is available in its pantry.

During the pandemic, she said there has been a higher need to get food out as families have spent more time together. That has led to more households with people suffering from illnesses who need specific types of food.

Last week, Dove says members of TOPPS went house-to-house in Pine Bluff asking if families were enrolled in SNAP. She says registering people who qualify for the program has been a challenge.

“Some people don’t know how to access the system,” Dove said. “They don’t have the understanding of the questions or they’re fearful of the questions they might be asked, so they kind of need support there to apply for other benefits.”

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that in 2020, Arkansas was tied with Mississippi for second worst in the category of “very low food security” at 5.9%. That’s defined as reports of people having disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake. Louisiana was at the bottom at 6.5%.

Lee Powell, executive director of the Delta Grassroots Caucus, says the recently released data shows SNAP and school lunch programs lifted 3.2 million people out of poverty nationally, while stimulus payments lifted another 11.7 million out of poverty. Still, he says one-in-three Arkansas children are considered to be food insecure.

Since the start of the pandemic there has been an increase in SNAP benefits. Before the outbreak, Powell said each person was receiving an average of $121 per month. Now that’s up to $169 a month.

“So that’s certainly a plus,” Powell said.

He too noted that many people who might be eligible don’t know about SNAP assistance.

“The elderly don’t know the system all that well or they may not even know about the benefits,” Powell said. “We’re trying to get out the word in every way that we can that these extra benefits are available.”

Berg says formulas made for concentrated poverty in large urban areas won't work as well in a rural state like Arkansas. He says improved public policies are needed to reduce poverty and food insecurity in the state.

“The pilot projects we had this summer and last summer during the pandemic really took away the paperwork," Berg said. "We really need those made permanent nationwide and they’d be really particularly useful for Arkansas.”

Michael Hibblen was a journalist for KUAR News from May 2009 — December 2022. During his final 10 years with the station, he served as News Director. In January 2023, he was hired by Arkansas PBS to become its Senior Producer/ Director of Public Affairs.
Maddie Becker serves as an intern at KUAR News as part of the George C. Douthit Endowed Scholarship program for the Fall 2021 semester.
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