Nine out of ten counties struggling with food insecurity are rural.

Rising food prices and stagnant wages have hit families hard over the last couple of years, and now that pandemic-era benefits are a thing of the past and school is out for summer, families with kids are feeling the heat. And communities can feel the difference.

Some food pantries are reporting a more than 700% increase in requests for help.

Working families often get by during the school year by relying on SNAP benefits and free or reduced school lunches. For some children, a school lunch is all the food they get to eat that day. When summer hits, low-income families are forced to stretch already thin budgets even further.

That's why the Biden Administration expanded summer SNAP benefits for school-aged children, to give parents more resources and ensure kids have a nutritious lunch regardless of the time of year. But, 14 states opted out of receiving this federal funding. All of them have Republican governors; most of them are rural.

In Oklahoma where Gov. Stitt declined to participate, three tribal nations – Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw – picked up his slack and are offering the program to families on their reservations.

Now, some Republicans are even trying to rewrite the Farm Bill to make it harder and more burdensome for low-wage workers to feed their kids by changing the formula used to determine who qualifies for need.

We'll never stop sounding the drum on this. Hunger, school lunches, and feeding kids over the summer is not a partisan issue. Kids deserve to get healthy food and struggling families deserve the help they need to put dinner on the table. It's as simple as that.

If you want to learn more about what drives hunger in rural communities, listen to my recent conversations with Joel and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Xochitl Torres Small, on the Hot Dish Podcast – America's Hunger Paradox: Tackling Food Scarcity in the Land of Plenty – to learn more about how we can solve America's hunger problem.

LISTEN NOW!

Heidi

Heidi Heitkamp, Former U.S. Senator from North Dakota
Founder, One Country Project