Media Coverage

ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – Kayla Darby receives SNAP benefits at the beginning of the month, but with four kids, she needs additional support.

“It doesn’t get us through the full month, so I have to come down here,” Darby said. She’s referring to the Athens County Food Pantry, which she visits once a month, usually the week before her SNAP benefits reset. Pantry President Karin Bright sees over 700 people a month, but those numbers could increase if Congress limits funding to SNAP benefits.

“When (benefits) go up, our numbers tend to go down; when they go down, our numbers go up,” Bright said. The House markup of the 2024 farm bill would freeze a key metric that evaluates the cost of buying healthy food and is used to help calculate SNAP benefits. Freezing the Thrifty Food Plan would cut about $30 billion in SNAP benefits over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Instead of evaluating the cost of a healthy diet, SNAP benefits would only be adjusted for inflation. “If they continue to base the SNAP benefits on what it is now, in a year or two it will be way off and it’s just going to mean less buying power for those food stamps,” Bright said. Sarah Kuhns, Ohio Food Bank advocacy and engagement manager, is worried about what not keeping up with the cost of nutritional food could lead to. “This may impact SNAP’s ability to remain nimble, and would really hamstring its ability to be an effective and critical nutrition program that families rely on monthly,” Kuhns said.

Summer can be the hungriest time of the year for students who rely on free or reduced school meals and a new federal program is trying to help those families.

Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (S-EBT) — also known as SUN Bucks — is a new grocery benefit program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will give families $120 per eligible student to buy groceries during the summer.

Ohio is one of more than 30 states that has opted into the SUN Bucks program.

“We have a lot of Ohio children who rely on their school meals for their breakfasts and lunches, and in the summertime sometimes it’s very difficult for households to be able to provide meals,” said Brigette Hires, director of nutrition for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. “This new Summer EBT has really helped to just have another safety net for households in the summertime to be able to provide nutritious meals for their families.”

While Ohio students are out of school for the summer, their families can receive help paying for groceries through a new statewide program. Summer EBT, also called SUN Bucks, gives eligible families $120 per child in school, issued onto an Ohio Direction Card.

Eligible Ohio families will receive $120 this summer to buy groceries for their children through a new summer EBT/SUN Bucks program.

Brigette Hires, director of the Office of Nutrition for the Ohio Department of Education, said children whose caregivers cannot afford to buy enough food during the summer are at higher risk for food insecurity and learning loss. She pointed out children are automatically eligible to receive the one-time $120 benefit in the coming months if their families are on SNAP, Medicaid or the Ohio Works First program, and are certified by their school to receive free or reduced price meals.

Foodbank Association Decries Farm Bill: The Ohio Association of Foodbanks Executive Director Joree Novotny said in a statement that modest increase to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program inthe 2024 Farm Bill were undercut by a provision that would "erode investments in SNAP and other emergency food assistance programs overtime." The U.S. House Agriculture Committee recently passed its Farm, Foodand National Security Act of 2024, which now awaits a floor vote. "Ohio's families and local economies have already absorbed a loss of about $126 million per month in federally funded SNAP benefits in the wake of the pandemic," Novotny said "Unfortunately, rather than fully funding access to an adequate, wholesome diet, the House Agriculture Committee's bill language would mean less purchasing power forgroceries, as well as reduced investments in The Emergency Food Assistance Program over time." It also does not include funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, restricts the USDA's ability to direct for TEFAP foods to foodbanks, fails to permanently authorize replacement SNAP benefits and includes "harmful" changes to SNAP administration, she said.

Joree Novotny, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, said in an interview that the Summer EBT program is a “big win,” as it’s the first new permanent federal nutrition program in five decades.

The program, she said, helps families pay for food at a time when costs are rising – not just at the grocery store, but also for essentials such as rent, utilities and childcare.

Putting that extra money in families’ hands, she continued, “stabilizes them and helps them think about how they can enroll their kid in that educational or recreational summer camp that they’ve been begging for, buy them the new shoes they need, expose them to a new sporting team that they weren’t able to otherwise participate in and actually think about thriving instead of surviving.”

Unlike some other food aid programs, Novotny noted, Summer EBT benefits are also open to all Ohioans, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.

Ohio has gone about as far as the federal government allows to ensure that all eligible residents are automatically enrolled, Novotny said.