When I was a child living in a refugee camp, I distinctly remember the vacant feeling of going to bed on an empty stomach when my family didn’t have enough food to eat. I remember the weakness, the inability to concentrate and the desperation for it to end.
Recently, I heard from Will, a high school student in my Minneapolis district, who faces similar challenges in a very different context. The pandemic exacerbated already tight family finances. As a result, he often goes to school without breakfast and finds it difficult to concentrate. “When I’m in class, my lunch isn’t until 1:00,” he told me. “I’ll just be sitting there like, ‘Oh my gosh, when is lunch gonna come,’ because I haven’t eaten all day.”
No child should go through this.
But at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of families across the country faced a similar crisis. Schools were closed, and on top of that, many parents were without jobs, income or their regular hours at work. Students who previously qualified for free or reduced price school meals were now home and hungry. Many parents were forced to scrape together the funds to afford an extra meal for their kids, in addition to the burden of lost wages and caring for kids full time.
So in March 2020, I proposed a simple solution: Let schools provide meals at no cost to families. I called it the Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students or MEALS Act (we love acronyms in Congress), and in partnership with the House Education and Labor Committee and Congressional Leadership, we were able to negotiate its inclusion in the bipartisan CARES Act, which passed in March 2020.
The results were a resounding success in Minnesota and across the country. The MEALS Act gives schools the flexibility to make changes to their meal program to ensure their ability to provide meals to students by allowing the increase of federal costs for the purpose of providing meals. Approximately 22 million kids relied on school meals before the pandemic, and it’s estimated that the MEALS Act and resulting waivers helped an additional 10 million get fed. It also kept people employed preparing and delivering food for kids who need it.
But like most issues in Washington, the story isn’t so simple. The program was set to expire at the end of June if Congress didn’t act. Yet, after Senate Republicans threatened to block additional funding for the meals, I was able to work with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and committee chairs on a compromise to extend the meal waivers through the summer. And last Friday the extension passed, ensuring these meals will not expire!
In the midst of horrific decision taking away our basic rights, it’s hard to find hope. But this bill was a shining example of the government working at one if its core functions — making sure the American people don’t go hungry. And it was a reminder that our country can do amazing things when our government works as intended.
But we cannot stop here. Supply chain issues and the rising cost of food are making the hunger crisis worse. Food prices are expected to increase up to 7.5% this year, stretching already tight family budgets. Some 13 million children already faced hunger in our country before the pandemic. Three out of every four teachers say they see students regularly come to school hungry, and a majority of them regularly buy food for students out of their own pockets.
[image_caption]Rep. Ilhan Omar[/image_caption]And we know that getting nutritious meals doesn’t just prevent hunger. It has benefits for a child’s physical and mental development. Studies show that students who show up hungry to class lose the ability to concentrate and have worse academic performance. This can have lifelong consequences.
The only lasting solution is to provide school meals free of charge to any student who wants it — as many districts have done during the pandemic. This would reduce burdensome paperwork requirements and make sure that no child in the wealthiest country in the world goes hungry at school. It’s also overwhelmingly supported by Democrats, Republicans and independents. That’s why I have introduced a bill — along with the support of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Tina Smith and leaders like Valerie Castile — to do just that.
We have an opportunity to prove that a government of the people, by the people and for the people can still deliver big things. We can prevent tens of millions of children across the country from going hungry, and ensure that students, teachers and parents all have the support they need in these difficult times.
Ilhan Omar represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House.
Sounds like a fine idea. Feeding hungry kids always makes sense. Too bad Omar does not address any of the costs of a permanent program. (Channeling my inner Joe Smith here).
“The only lasting solution is to provide school meals free of charge to any student who wants it — as many districts have done during the pandemic.”
Who would insist on paying if the alternative is free? Does this includes kids in Edina & Wayzata too? Private schools too?
The math says: 5o million k-12 students in the US, $3.50 per meal, 180 meals per year = about 40b per year. The Republican rammed through Medicare Part D now costs about 50b per year.
Sounds OK to me when Ilhan Omar proposes Republican like expansions of federal spending for a universal benefit…
If you oppose this program be prepared to be labeled has “hating kids” or “against education.”
This does illustrate that once something becomes part of spending it is hard to say “no.”
Students who are hungry cannot concentrate on academics.
Rep. Omar offers common sense ways to actually HELP our schools and students.
Thank you Rep. Omar, you’re the hardest working refugee in Congress! It is obvious the perspectives you bring to the work in D.C. are desperately needed, especially when skinflint Republicans would rather cut taxes for the rich, oppose minimum corporate taxes internationally, and take over school curricula without a shred of common sense about what our students really need to become the citizens we want.
Free breakfast, free lunch … only two more steps, dinner and sleeping accommodations, and we might as well turn the government schools into government boarding schools. My mother and uncle attended one in Pipestone and we all know how that worked out. You’d think having lived in a refugee camp would instill some form of appreciation for just being free. But I guess being regulated like farm animals can become habit-forming.
Such a cold, unempathetic attitude toward children and education itself.
A child raised without adequate security (food, clothing, shelter and LOVE) will not necessarily become a hardened independent conservative with a work ethic.
On the contrary, like vicious aggressive dogs arise from maltreatment in their upbringing, child neglect will not produce a good neighbor, a leader, or perhaps even an employable adult.
If your position is to spare yourself some taxes, or merely a theory that too much help creates dependencies, I see no morality in your attitude.
My “theory” is that it’s not the role of government to raise the nation’s children. My ancestors became totally dependent on government, a situation I was fortunate enough to escape thanks to a conservative father.
Would you cling to that idea if you witnessed another human catastrophe in which only a broad public action could turn the tide?
Why can’t the idea of “we are our brother’s keeper” register in the conservative mindset?
Because we’re not collectivists. We’re individualists.
“We are individualists”?
You must not understand our founding documents:
[famously]
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States…”
That, Mr. Tester is a clear statement of purpose for WE THE PEOPLE.
Individuals are not sovereign, they are called “selfish”.
It’s not collectivist or individualist. It’s a practical solution to a significant problem. No one asks to be born into this world and it’s not a child’s fault if they were born into a poor or dysfunctional family. A few nickels more to help keep these kids focused for learning won’t break the bank and it will help level our increasingly unlevel playing field and restore equal opportunity.
I believe that is why we have parents?? That is plural meaning 2 of them for every child.
According to far leftists, children belong to the government. Birthing persons are merely a vessel to produce more for the collective. They want to control every aspect of our lives. Where we live, where we work, how we get to work and what we think.
I am probably what you would call a “far-leftist” in Republican vernacular and I can attest to the fact that your smear is an unfounded lie.
If you want to make people angry, tell lies about our children and grandchildren. Tell us we want control when the other major party is literally DOING SO RIGHT NOW in 2 branches of our government.
I suggest you tell the truth about “far-left” Democrats and let us figure out ourselves whether to hate them as you do or not. Persuade us.
Your post could be corrected and perhaps even be true, if your description of the offenders was based on observation, facts or reality.
How you can write this as a vocal supporter of efforts by the state to ban abortions and force childbirth on women is rather remarkable, if also incoherent.