well thousands of new jersey children

will soon lose access to free meals when

covid19 related funding for the

temporary program expires on september

30th anti-hunger advocates say for many

kids a free school lunch or breakfast is

their only nutritious meal of the day

with more and more research pointing to

negative academic and social outcomes

associated with food insecurity well now

they're ramping up calls for federal

leaders to permanently fund universal

free meals in public schools

Erin Comollo is the program development

administrator for the new jersey healthy

kids initiative she joins me now as part

of our ongoing series chasing the dream

focusing on justice poverty and economic

opportunity

what are you most concerned about when

the universal free meal program ends in

a couple of weeks here

well when the universal lunch ends not

only will

eligible families

lose a lot of the benefits that they've

been experiencing during this pandemic

time but

more families that have become eligible

during this time will also lose those

benefits we've seen astronomical amounts

of food insecurity in the state of new

jersey and it's only gotten worse since

covid so so many people who needed these

benefits before and now

the added amounts of people who are food

insecure will be

heavily affected by this change i wonder

aaron how inflation

is playing into this we know that the

cost that the grocery store is up that

folks who maybe typically were able to

make ends meet aren't now when it comes

to getting food on the table how's that

going to play out from what you all are

seeing

absolutely so there is a statistic that

we are all about two paychecks away from

the poverty line and needing these

services so especially right now where

the job market is very tumultuous

it is very easy for us to see ourselves

in a situation where we would need these

benefits especially because of the

rising cost of food

universal

breakfast and lunch would help alleviate

some of that burden for these families

who might have multiple children to care

for as well as themselves to feed where

are they turning when they're not

getting these meals i mean is it the

local food pantry is it a church what

are they doing to fill the gap

it's a great question

many families do seek out the snap

benefits or wic benefits however that

process and the system is not really

easy to navigate so we really encourage

families to use their local food banks

the church system

and many of the services that they offer

however there is a stigma that goes with

reaching out for help whether it is to a

local pantry or navigating the systems

to get snap benefits so those are some

issues that go along even if those

services are available we did a lot of

reporting on the way that parents signed

up the paperwork um and some of the

barriers that were there what's going to

happen now if the program does end

well that paperwork is a huge barrier

like you said many people don't know how

to navigate these systems a lot of

community food banks try to offer

services to support families in trying

to complete this paperwork however

because it's such a large barrier and if

the universal breakfast and lunch were

to end

again it would make things a lot harder

for these families to access those meals

for their children so basically i guess

my question is is that paperwork from

what your research has found onerous uh

for the parents is that what's

preventing them from signing up for the

help

absolutely so even if it's not

preventing them they might not even know

the process or how to initiate the

process to begin with and studies have

found that it is one of the top barriers

to

people enrolling in the benefits in fact

we only have about 70 percent of

eligible participants actually enrolled

in snap benefits currently Erin Comollo

thanks very much for sharing your

insight tonight

thank you

major funding for chasing the dream is

provided by the jpb foundation with

additional funding from the peter g

peterson and joan ganz cooney fund

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