The SNAP-Ed program — which focuses on nutrition education and overall wellness for people on food stamps — will end Sept. 30, cutting off hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual grants that supported programming across all Vermont counties, including recipe demonstrations, meal kits and active-living guides.

The program’s elimination was part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget adjustments that passed on July 4 in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. As the state’s food assistance network finds its way through a new landscape of shortfalls, officials worry more residents will fall through the cracks.

SNAP-Ed is an extension of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which has experienced a number of cuts across the board. Instead of providing funds for individuals to purchase food, SNAP-Ed’s much smaller grants focus on community education and initiatives to improve eligible households’ engagement with 3SquaresVT — Vermont’s name for the larger body of resources under SNAP. 

“Just providing food for people is not the whole answer to food security,” said Suzanne Kelly, who was the SNAP-Ed coordinator at the Vermont Department of Health for a decade until last month. Her former position, and another related role, will soon be discontinued.

“SNAP-Ed is sort of that extra bit of information to really make sure that people can access the food, can use the food, and can enjoy it over time,” Kelly said.

The program is deeply focused on health outcomes, she said, including prevention of chronic conditions and disease, and promoting wellness through nutrition and exercise.

Kelly is concerned about the immediate impact on Vermonters. 

“These are decisions that trickle down to the most vulnerable people in our communities,” she said.

Kelly referenced a SNAP-Ed needs assessment earlier this year that identified certain populations in the state with a disproportionately high need for food assistance, including rural Vermonters and people with disabilities. Outreach programs that meet people where they are geographically will be an especially big loss, Kelly said.

The end of SNAP-Ed has already had tangible effects in recent weeks, causing the imminent shutdown of a food pantry in Holland and contributing to the Vermont Foodbank’s recent staff cuts. Of the seven employees the food bank let go, three were specifically operating SNAP-Ed programs, according to Chris Meehan, the company’s chief impact officer.

Vermont residents received over $147 million in SNAP aid last year. The projected allocation for Vermont’s SNAP-Ed budget in 2026, which the Department of Health received May 30, was less than half a million. Five weeks later, Kelly learned that the program was canceled.

‘We’ll have to be really creative’

Meehan said the SNAP-Ed cuts will effectively end the Vermont Foodbank’s VTFresh program, which has reached every county in the state with initiatives to increase access and understanding around nutrition. The program provided a space for people to exchange knowledge about cooking, recipes and budgeting, and was often particularly useful for families, she said.

While the food bank employees who ran the initiative are no longer with the organization, the program’s existing resources will remain on the Vermont Foodbank website. VTFresh’s continuing presence, Meehan said, will be “more passive than active.”

Meehan is grateful for the infrastructure that VTFresh has left behind — it has been “transformational” for the food assistance network in the state, she said. 

Denise Walton, a Concord resident who is a lead volunteer at Sid’s Pantry in town, said VTFresh recipe materials had been invaluable in allowing her community to make better use of fresh foods. It’s common, she said, for people to ask questions about how to prepare food as they’re taking it.

“I think people want to cook,” said Walton, who herself is on food stamps. “They may not have learned, or been taught, or had the time.”

Walton said she would keep trying to provide resources to help people fully use the food they’re receiving — but that it will be more challenging going forward. 

“We’ll have to be really creative,” Walton said.

Vermont Foodbank’s situation is par for the course statewide at smaller food assistance providers.

The Vermont Garden Network will lose its dedicated nutrition educator, according to executive director T Hanson, one of only five staff at the organization. Come Alive Outside, a nonprofit which used SNAP-Ed funds to reach thousands of school-age kids in Rutland County with tips on how to stay active, has told its staff it may not have sufficient funds to pay everyone in six months, according to Executive Director Arwen Turner. 

Meanwhile, in Burlington, the People’s Farmstand will continue as a purely volunteer effort, according to founding Director Nour El-Naboulsi. There hadn’t been salaried roles, he clarified, but they had previously been able to offer staff — primarily farmers — a stipend for their time. The organization offers free fresh produce (both self-grown and donated) at weekly open events but has also been conducting educational outreach through its Veggie of the Month program. 

El-Naboulsi said the initiative features a combination of staple Vermont crops and “culturally relevant produce — things from Nepal, Somalia, Iraq (and) other places in the Middle East and East Africa.” The organization serves a relatively large proportion of immigrant and refugee populations, he said, and the program is designed to combine familiar food with information about how to prepare local produce.

With the loss of SNAP-Ed funding to the People’s Farmstand and sister organization Village Hydroponics, El-Naboulsi said he has had to reprioritize.

“We kind of lose the capacity to do supplementary education, recipe preparation, outreach,” he said.

‘A great return on investment’

Keith Robinson, a pediatric pulmonologist at UVM Children’s Hospital, emphasized a connection between SNAP-Ed and health outcomes for families. He’s the hospital’s vice chair for Quality Improvement and Population Health and built the provider’s screening platform for food insecurity.

“We are trying to go deeper and further upstream to make sure that we’re solving the root causes of food insecurity in Vermont,” Robinson said.

For him, nutrition education has been a big part of that work — that’s why the end of SNAP-Ed is such a blow, despite the small scale of previous funding.

“It’s gonna make communities potentially less healthy, and it’s also gonna create gaps in the systems that we need to have around families,” he said. “While the dollar value may not be great, the impact of those dollars is extraordinary.”

Robinson referenced a state report on SNAP-Ed last year, calling survey data that indicated diet and exercise changes for participants “a big deal.” Roughly a third of people who received direct nutrition education reported they ate more fruits and vegetables each day, and 20% said they exercised more, according to the report.

“That’s a great return on investment,” Robinson said.

Modifications and cuts to the SNAP program at large have been made in the name of eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” — a narrative that Kelly disputed. 

“The strategies that are used (in SNAP-Ed) have shown outcomes — real outcomes,” she said.

A page addressing cost concerns on the USDA website references studies showing that for every dollar spent on SNAP-Ed and similar programs, 10 times that can be saved in future health care costs. The total nationwide cost of the program would have been $550 million in the 2026 fiscal year.

“It’s probably not the best idea to be cutting programs that are going to eventually help reduce costs way further down the line,” Kelly said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not respond to requests for comment.

A document briefly detailing SNAP overhaul from the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture called SNAP-Ed a program that has wrought “no meaningful change” for its target population. The committee cited a 2019 report from the Government Accountability Office that appears to primarily conclude that the effectiveness of the program is difficult to properly evaluate due to uneven standards of reporting from state agencies and a lack of coordination at the federal level. 

“When federal benefits get cut like this, we need to think about how to bolster connections in our community, and think differently about how to fill those gaps,” Robinson said. 

Jeanne Montross, executive director of Helping Overcome Poverty’s Effects, or HOPE, in Middlebury, said her organization has been seeing the effects of staff and program cuts elsewhere in the state’s assistance networks. Montross’ nonprofit is primarily funded by private contributions.

“It always ends up flowing down to HOPE,” she said of increased need in her local community.

Anore Horton, executive director at Hunger Free Vermont, said the state’s food assistance network “cannot in any way mitigate the loss of all of these different sources of funding.”

Any solution to a problem of this scale must be “collective,” Horton said, but must also involve significant new assistance from the state government. But in a situation this urgent, Horton said it wouldn’t necessarily make sense for the state to replace nutrition education funding.

Walton said Sid’s Pantry has also been increasingly relying on community support and donations.

“We’re very fortunate to have a little buffering like that,” she said, “especially for an aging community that needs healthy food and needs access to things out in the rural areas.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Loss of SNAP-Ed program leaves gaps in Vermont’s food assistance network.

This commentary is by Ivy Enoch of Richmond, SNAP policy and training lead at Hunger Free Vermont.

Earning a college degree is challenging, especially for Vermont students who balance school, jobs and family while working to put food on the table. Fortunately, a new policy change now makes it easier for Vermont’s community college students to access 3SquaresVT, the state’s name for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to help with grocery expenses so they can focus on success in school.

As of October 1, 2024, Vermont’s Department for Children and Families adopted a policy that eliminated a prohibitive work activity requirement for community college students seeking to gain eligibility for 3SquaresVT. 

This policy change recognizes that mandating work requirements is simply not effective at incentivizing work, because 80% of CCV students are already employed while pursuing their degree. The student work requirement does nothing other than create arduous and burdensome paperwork requirements, posing a legitimate barrier to 3SquaresVT for students simply trying to meet their basic needs while learning. 

This policy aligns Vermont with other states like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington and Connecticut, which have taken similar steps to support community college students by increasing access to programs like SNAP that help with basic living expenses. By removing the student work requirement, Vermont is supporting the food security of our community college students.

So, what does this mean for CCV students? If you’re enrolled in a two-year associate degree or certificate program (excluding liberal studies students) you no longer have to meet the “student work requirement” to qualify for 3SquaresVT. Benefits are provided on an EBT card, which works just like a debit card, and can be used at grocery stores and farmers’ markets in VT, across the country, and even online. A family of three who meets income requirements could receive up to $768 every month for groceries.

National studies show that students attending community colleges are more likely to face challenges when it comes to getting enough food for themselves and their families. In fact, nearly one in four students at community colleges struggle to afford groceries — this is an unacceptable reality. 

CCV, under guidance from President Joyce Judy, has dedicated great attention and resources to the issue of food and basic needs security among students. The institution has created robust student resource centers at every campus, holding in-person classes where students can access staple foods, a hot meal and support from a trained peer mentor in navigating program applications like 3SquaresVT. We see this as a best practice, one worth investing in. 

We commend CCV and President Judy for their commitment to their students’ well-being, and for being a vocal supporter of this shift in 3SquaresVT policy.

This policy is a win for students, families and Vermont’s economy. By ensuring students have access to the support they need to stay healthy and nourished, they are better positioned to succeed in school and their future careers. No one should ever have to choose between food or books for class. It’s a victory for all of us who believe in the power of education to transform lives.

We commend Vermont’s Department for Children and Families for adopting this common-sense policy. By making it easier for community college students to access 3SquaresVT, they are not only addressing the immediate needs of students but also contributing to the long-term success of the state’s workforce and economy. 

To all CCV students: we encourage you to see if you qualify for 3SquaresVT! You may be leaving behind grocery money that you rightfully deserve. If you want or need some support through the application process, call 2-1-1 and ask for 3SquaresVT assistance, text VFBSNAP to ‘85511’ or visit vermontfoodhelp.com to learn more.

Thank you, Vermont Department for Children and Families, for this important step forward. With this change, Vermont is leading the way in supporting community college students, ensuring they have the resources they need to succeed both in the classroom and in life.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Ivy Enoch: Vermont eases access to food program for community college students.

This commentary has multiple signers. They are listed below the text.

All people deserve access to the basic human needs of food and shelter. We know that the state of Vermont — our government and our people — can make the choice to shelter and feed everyone in Vermont. For the past four years, the state has supported the GA emergency housing program in order to provide shelter to our most vulnerable neighbors. During the Covid-19 pandemic emergency, state agencies contracted with food service companies to provide meals for people housed in hotels, and then established Vermont Everyone Eats, through which restaurant workers and owners proved themselves to be committed, essential and highly effective community food security partners. 

The current unhousing crisis is the result of deliberate choices to change Vermont’s policy of providing safe, non-congregate housing to vulnerable people experiencing homelessness. These harmful policy choices can and must be reversed. Government can make policy choices that ensure everyone has housing and food. Taking away the fundamental human rights to shelter and food is immoral and is creating a state emergency that was completely preventable. 

When people are unsheltered, they have no way to safely store food or cook for themselves, leaving food access severely limited. By unhousing people, the state is also creating a new hunger crisis and threatening people’s health and lives. Municipalities and service providers across the state are heroically scrambling, yet again, to meet these needs, but many of these entities were already stretched thin before this latest crisis. 

We call upon Gov. Scott to declare a state of emergency and immediately reinstate safe, accessible, non-congregate housing for all vulnerable people who have been evicted from hotel housing as a result of the changes made to the GA emergency housing program in Act 113, consistent with the provider letter to Gov. Scott that was released on Sept. 25. 

State government has stripped people of safe shelter and access to food, and must immediately reverse course and provide adequate resources to meet people’s essential needs. Gov. Scott and all state agencies must:

• Provide immediate state funding to community action agencies and other community-based congregate and prepared meal programs so that they can increase their production and distribution of prepared meals to unhoused and marginally housed people.
• Provide immediate state funding through the Vermont Everyone Eats framework to willing restaurants in communities bearing the brunt of the current state-government-created unhousing crisis, so they can serve as another source of prepared and ready-to-eat meals to keep everyone fed wherever they are.
• Implement the state option for the SNAP restaurant meals program in Vermont so that it can be in place to support unhoused people and others in need of access to prepared meals through restaurants in future times of crisis, including the everyday crises that keep people from being able to access the food they need.
• Provide immediate state funding to Vermont Foodbank to support food shelves and meal sites who are being asked to meet the surge in demand in their local communities.

As we have seen in recent years, the state can choose to meet the basic needs of all of us living in Vermont. The lack of action by the administration is a failure to care for our most vulnerable neighbors. 

We urge Gov. Scott to immediately address this crisis and ensure access to safe, stable shelter and dignified access to food.

List of signers

Anore Horton, executive director, Hunger Free Vermont

Paul Dragon, executive director, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity

Frank Knaack, executive director, Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont

Sue Minter, executive director, Capstone Community Action

Grace Oedel, executive director, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont

John Sayles, CEO, Vermont Foodbank

Joshua Davis, executive director, Southeastern Vermont Community Alliance

Read the story on VTDigger here: Nonprofit leaders: Rehouse and feed vulnerable people being exited from emergency housing program.

This commentary is by Ivy Enoch, SNAP policy and training lead at Hunger Free Vermont.

As we mark the 60th anniversary of the Food Stamps Act, now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) nationally and 3SquaresVT here in Vermont, it is crucial to recognize the profound impact this landmark legislation has had on reducing hunger and poverty across the United States.

Since its inception in 1964, SNAP has become a cornerstone of our nation’s work to end hunger, ensuring millions of Americans have access to nourishing food to lead healthy lives. Studies have consistently shown that SNAP not only helps to put food on the table but also contributes to better long-term health, educational outcomes, and economic stability.

Every $1 spent on SNAP generates $1.79 in economic activity. In State Fiscal Year 2023, over $214 million in SNAP benefits were issued to Vermonters. These federal dollars give people the autonomy to buy the groceries that are right for them and their families, when and where they want.

In Vermont, the impact has been equally significant. More than 65,000 people across the state benefit from 3SquaresVT — helping to ensure that children, working adults, college students, people with disabilities, older adults and many others can afford the food they need to thrive. However, many more are eligible for this vital state program and are not yet tapping into its support. 3SquaresVT is for everyone who qualifies, and we all deserve this benefit in times of need.

At Hunger Free Vermont, we believe that everyone deserves access to the nourishing food they love, and programs like SNAP are essential in moving us toward a more equitable future. The benefits of SNAP extend beyond individual households; the program brings important federal dollars into Vermont’s economy, supports local retailers and farmers and helps ensure that future generations are well-fed and thriving.

As we celebrate and reflect on how SNAP has served so many in the last 60 years, we can’t ignore the unfortunate truth that SNAP is under threat. In early 2023, as Congress geared up to revisit and ultimately reauthorize the 2018 Farm Bill, Hunger Free Vermont and our allies delivered a set of policy priorities to Sens. Sanders and Welch, and Rep. Balint, informed by hundreds of individuals across the state.

That message was clear and remains the same: protect SNAP and other federal nutrition programs no matter what. Our senators and representative heard that message and centered the voices of Vermonters, and for that, we deeply thank them.

Instead of a reauthorization, Congress passed a one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill, which ensured that funding for SNAP and other federal nutrition programs would not lapse. This year, the House and Senate Agriculture Committees finally took up the Farm Bill, resulting in two dangerously different visions for the future of food security and agriculture policies.

While the Senate proposal included measures to protect and strengthen SNAP, House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson’s Farm Bill framework proposed to slash SNAP over the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office estimates a Thompson Farm Bill would result in a $30 billion cut to SNAP over 10 years. In Vermont, that would mean a $50 million cut to SNAP between FY2027 and FY2033.

These cuts would disproportionately affect older adults, children, people with disabilities, and veterans, exacerbating the challenges they already face in accessing nutritious food. A Farm Bill that doesn’t protect SNAP would harm all of us in Vermont — not only SNAP participants but also food shelves and pantries, farmers and markets, and our local businesses and retailers. We can’t let this happen.

Now more than ever, we need to unify our support of SNAP and champion the program that supports tens of thousands of Vermonters, and our state food security efforts as a whole. We hope you’ll join us in advocating for a Farm Bill that strengthens SNAP and ensures its responsiveness to the injustice of hunger. We encourage everyone to see if they qualify for 3SquaresVT. To learn more about the program, visit vermontfoodhelp.com.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Ivy Enoch: Why SNAP must be protected for future generations.

A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report on food insecurity and hunger reinforces what so many people in Vermont already know and are experiencing firsthand — affording food for ourselves and our families is becoming much harder. 

The national report outlines a 40% increase in food insecurity across the U.S. from 2021 to 2022, further reinforcing recent Census data showing the largest-ever one-year increase in poverty. 

This drastic and inhumane increase in hunger and poverty makes the following clear: When the federal government chooses inaction by rolling back essential programs, it has devastating impacts on too many of our neighbors. 

Advocates and service providers across the state have been talking with community members and are continuously hearing about the struggle to keep food on the table each and every day, week, or month. 

Increasing food prices and the rolling back of essential anti-poverty programs, like the Child Tax Credit and increased 3SquaresVT benefit amounts, disproportionately impact those who are not adequately supported by systems built to improve access to basic needs like stable housing, enough nourishing food, and economic security. 

The USDA report highlights that in 2022, food insecurity for households that were American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, Hispanic, or multiracial was more than double the rate for white households. 

In a statement released by the USDA, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack stated, “These findings are unacceptable, yet the report is the latest piece of evidence that as the pandemic began to wane in 2022, another public health concern — food insecurity — increased. The experience of the pandemic showed us that when the government invests in meaningful support for families, we can make a positive impact on food security, even during challenging economic times.” 

We could not agree more. We are heartened to know that national leaders like Vilsack are sounding the alarm and pushing for change. 

In Vermont, when the state or federal government invests in meaningful support, there is a positive impact on food security. And when neighbors are struggling, we must act. 

Recent investments by our state — including a new child care law, Act 76, the Vermont Child Tax credit, and Universal School Meals — will have a positive impact. We all must continue this longer-term policy and systems work in order to solve hunger. 

We must also make sure everyone in Vermont has access to nourishing food they need and want today. The Vermont Foodbank, Hunger Free Vermont and our partners across the state are working to meet those needs each day, and we look forward to working with the administration and the Legislature to address longer-term systemic challenges.

Join the Vermont Foodbank, Hunger Free Vermont and our partners, community members and legislators for an End Hunger Briefing on Nov. 29 for an update on the status of hunger in Vermont.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Sayles & Horton: For many Vermonters, it’s much harder to afford food.

Vermont youths age 18 and under will have access to free food again this summer through the Summer Food Service Program, a federally funded, state-administered program that began in 1968 and served hundreds of thousands of meals throughout the state last summer.

The Vermont Agency of Education, which announced the continuation of the program on Wednesday, said meals will be accessible to anyone under age 18, regardless of income. Certain sites will prioritize foster children and children who are members of households that receive 3SquaresVT, Reach Up benefits, or meet the Summer Food Service Program’s income eligibility standards. 

In addition, people over age 18 who have a documented disability will be eligible to receive meals through the program, officials said.

The education agency’s announcement arrived at the end of a legislative session particularly focused on food access. 

Funding for pandemic-era programs such as extra EBT SNAP benefits and Everyone Eats have dried up, leaving many Vermonters reeling beneath the weight of compounding economic crises. In response, many Vermonters have organized responses to food insecurity, with some advocating for legislation to guarantee meals for Vermont students while others organize grassroots, non-market systems for distributing free food. 

Announced on the same day that legislation mandating free school meals became law in Vermont, without Gov. Phil Scott’s signature, the continuing Summer Food Service Program, is meant to make nutrition more accessible for youth and families. Last summer, it served 780,044 meals at over 276 sites across Vermont. 

The summer program “increases equity and access around the state, making sure that all children can have a summer where they can relax, play, and be kids,” said Lindsey Hedges, a policy communication specialist with the Vermont Agency of Education. “Child nutrition is also critical to how a student performs in the classroom. … When students are nourished, the likelihood of summer learning loss decreases.”

Meals offered by the program will continue to be served at sites around Vermont this year, including schools, parks, housing complexes and libraries. The locations can be found on an interactive map called the  USDA Meals For Kids Site Finder, which will be updated with new sites weekly. 

Families can also find information about open meal sites by calling 2-1-1, the United Way-run resource hotline, or through Hunger Free Vermont, which catalogs open sites by county online. 

According to the Agency of Education, the summer meals are served at three types of sites —  “open sites,” which are listed on the interactive map and are accessible to anyone 18 and under, and “closed-enrolled” and “summer camp sites,” which cater to specific populations. Both open and closed-enrolled sites can offer up to two meals or snacks per day, while camp sites are able to provide three meals or snacks daily, according to a press release.

“Access to nutritious foods is critical for child development, both during the school year and the summer months,” said Heather Bouchey, the state’s interim secretary of education, in a press release. “This is a fantastic program, and we want to make sure every community is aware of and has access to this resource.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Free food available to Vermont youth through the Summer Food Service Program.

Hunger is a solvable problem, yet in the federal debt limit deal, one of the negotiated “tradeoffs” is to take food off our neighbors’ tables. 

People over 50 and under 55 who receive SNAP benefits, known in Vermont as 3SquaresVT, will now have to prove that they either worked or volunteered for 80 hours in the previous month. This means official pay stubs, approved volunteer sheets, or other “proof,” submitted every month simply to receive anywhere from $23 to a few hundred dollars per month to purchase food, or these benefits will be subject to time limits. 

The debt ceiling agreement comes at the expense of people all across America, including tens of thousands of people in Vermont trying to make ends meet. The expansion of cruel and arbitrary requirements and time limits will only deepen hunger and poverty, in Vermont and beyond. 

Telling people who are struggling to make ends meet that without documented hours of labor, they can use 3SquaresVT for only three months out of every three years will certainly not significantly lower the national debt.

Who will be required to prove they are eligible? Neighbors who are unable to work, yet not disabled enough to qualify on a government form; family members caring for children so parents can work; a friend working off the books for a small business; or someone in a rural area with no transportation or internet access.

In Vermont, the newly proposed work requirements will apply to about 2,500 more people than the current work requirements. Thirty years of research shows that imposing work requirements and time limits on food benefits simply takes food away from people, making it harder to get and keep a job. Food is a basic need and should never have a time limit.

Adding burdens to people ages 50-54 who receive food assistance as the price for allowing the government to pay its bills is immoral. These changes will do one thing: punish people with lower incomes and working-class people for systems outside of our control, like underpaid labor markets and lack of affordable housing, child care, transportation, and sick leave, to name only a few. Neighbors who qualify for 3SquaresVT benefits but, due to this policy change will be subject to work requirements and time limits, will continue to experience hunger. 

This federal policy choice also shifts the responsibility to ensure that no one in this wealthy country goes hungry to a network of organizations already reeling from the end of 3SquaresVT Emergency Allotments in April. Many of the Vermont Foodbank’s network partner food shelves and pantries saw record guest visits in May. 

This change puts impossible pressures on food banks and the small, local, community-based food programs that are already stretched thin by increased need. How can we ask the people who show up every day for neighbors across our state to do more when we have a federal system that already works — if politicians would only let it? 

Food banks and the charitable food system are not the solution to hunger. Tens of millions of people in the U.S. and well over 100,000 people in Vermont can’t afford enough nourishing food. People are working and contributing to our communities, yet they still can’t go to the store and afford to buy the food they need. 

Elected representatives need to stop cutting existing, successful programs and start listening to solutions to hunger being offered by communities across Vermont and around the country. Hunger is solvable. Hundreds of community organizations are ready to partner. Policymakers, let’s get down to the real work. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Horton & Sayles: Federal debt ceiling deal will heighten hunger, poverty.

When the Vermont Department for Children and Families first announced that a federal spending bill would end additional food stamp benefits this Friday, it included a bulleted list of resources to refer to “if you need more help with food.” 

The list drew attention to the fact that even though the extra benefits were part of an emergency response to Covid-19 and were always intended to sunset, hunger remains an urgent crisis in Vermont. 

Lena Greenberg, food access coordinator at the Intervale Center in Burlington, said cutting federal funding for hunger relief is out of touch with communities’ public health needs.

“We have no reason to believe that material conditions have improved for all of the people who are benefiting from these programs,” Greenberg said. The expiration of the extra benefits “is a travesty. This is horrible.”

In 2022, 2 in 5 Vermonters experienced hunger, according to a study from The University of Vermont. Now that Covid-19 pandemic supports are ending, local food organizers worry that number could rise. 

Vermont’s Food & Nutrition Program has issued almost $189 million in total food benefits since March 2020, according to Leslie Wisdom, director of the program. Most families who already qualified for 3SquaresVT, Vermont’s food stamp program, also qualified for the extra benefits, Wisdom said. Since 2020, more than 68,000 Vermonters have received the extra funds for food. 

With final payments having gone out this week, the end of the program will mean reductions in monthly benefits of between $100 and $500 per month for recipients.

“It’s always hard when you administer a program for people in need to have to lower the benefit amounts. We have to follow the federal rules, but I do think it’s a hard time for families,” Wisdom said, citing inflation rates that have increased the price of food by 9.5% in the past year.

The expiration of the extra support may return many Vermonters to deeper food insecurity, according to Ivy Enoch, food security advocacy manager with Hunger Free Vermont, a statewide anti-hunger advocacy and education organization. 

“Now for so many, impossible choices are going to have to be made between paying for basic needs (like) rent, a mortgage, food, or other necessary medical expenses,” Enoch said. 

Food systems organizer Jean Myung Hamilton said that the loss of the extra pandemic food benefits is significant, especially since it coincides with the end of the federally funded Everyone Eats program, which Hamilton helped to manage. Everyone Eats — which also expired Friday — was producing and distributing 25,000 meals a week to Vermonters in need.

“It’s very painful to watch how quickly we become so callous to people’s hunger,” said Hamilton, who has worked with groups including NOFA-VT, Conscious Homestead and the ReLeaf Collective, “which, as anyone who has ever been hungry before knows, feels dire and is an emergency all the time.”

The loss is felt “particularly for anyone who holds any number of marginalized identities,” she said. “Any additional need just stacks up, and often in very crippling ways.”

Food organizers across Vermont have been working to maintain and expand access to free and affordable food on statewide, local and grassroots levels, straining to fill the void that federal cuts are leaving. In the process, many are drawing attention to systemic failures of care and justice that have set the social and environmental stage for the hunger crisis. 

“We have such an incredible network of people, organizations and entities devoted to feeding people in Burlington,” said Greenberg, who, as part of the Intervale Center, helps coordinate free produce distributions year round in partnership with farms in the Intervale, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture and the Vermont Foodbank.

Greenberg says that while programs like 3SquaresVT are essential to helping people access food, community-run programs often have a deeper understanding of community needs. 

The Intervale Center’s services are completely free and require no means testing or proof of income for people to access food. This, Greenberg said, is essential to serving folks who speak limited English, people experiencing temporary hardship or people on the benefits cliff, who make too much money to get benefits but still struggle to get enough food.

“I cannot tell you how many people I talk to who say it is such a gift that you run a program that just feeds people,” Greenberg said.

This week, Greenberg said they have been working to update Burlington’s Free Food Map, an online and printable resource that highlights locations throughout the city where people can find free food.

One resource that appears on that map is the People’s Kitchen, a grassroots food organization that distributes hot meals.

The group helps to feed the people who need it most by coming to them, setting up weekly hot meal distribution sites in Burlington neighborhoods as well as meal delivery during the month of Ramadan, according to FaRied Munarsyah, activist and organizer with the People’s Kitchen. In the process, the group helps eliminate food waste by using ingredients that grocery stores or food shelves would have discarded. 

“We do try to put the ‘mutual’ in ‘mutual aid,’” Munarsyah said, “Often, like if we bring food to the families, the next week, they’ll help cook something for us, which makes it really a reciprocal relationship.”

According to Munarsyah, creating food access is about creating relationships between farmers, growers, eaters and other organizers. 

The People’s Farm Stand, run by Nour El-Naboulsi, Naomi Peduzzi and Sadie Bloch, was originally founded in partnership with the People’s Kitchen. Now, the groups act as sister organizations, with the People’s Farm Stand distributing free produce while the People’s Kitchen offers hot meals. 

When El-Naboulsi first heard that the extra 3SquaresVT benefits were ending, he said he felt inspired to create even stronger networks of collaboration. “We work with a lot of new American families,” he said, “So we’re thinking about how we can make (resources such as) the free food map easily understandable.”

According to Lindsey Berk, director of ACORN, a small nonprofit that works to strengthen local food and farming communities in the Champlain Valley watershed, efforts to alleviate hunger also necessitate an investigation of colonial systems that disguise the planet’s abundance and concentrate power in the hands of a wealthy few.

“Food should be a right,” Berk said. “So the question becomes whether we can envision a world where the state also agrees that food is a right.”

Andrew Courtney, director of Foodworks, which calls itself the most heavily utilized food shelf program in Brattleboro, said his organization is anticipating increased need as a result of the expiring extra benefits. 

“We’re all sort of bracing for what that impact might be,” Courtney said.

Even food shelf organizers who specialize in facilitating charitable food donations question whether this form of support is ideal or not. 

“Charity doesn’t seem to be the smartest method,” said Rob Meehan, director of Feeding Chittenden. “What would be better would be to use those tax dollars to kind of normalize food and make food available in a variety of ways to everyone.” 

Meehan said federal funding for programs such as 3SquaresVT helps keep dollars circulating within the local economy, benefiting growers and vendors alongside those consuming the food.

As communities come together to help feed each other, many organizers are quick to make the case that, in an ideal world, federal funding would prioritize the alleviation of human hunger. Some are considering how legislative action may be able to help address the hunger crisis. 

Emily Landenberger, the co-chair of the Addison County Hunger Council, said the group met with legislators recently to advocate for universal school meals for students in Vermont. 

Food organizers also have their eyes trained on current efforts to pass a new federal farm bill, which some say could address food insecurity and climate-related disasters. 

“The farm bill basically approves the spending for (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, and that’s a place where policy changes for the SNAP program historically are made through congressional action,” Wisdom said. 

At the end of February, a coalition of 500 hunger and nutrition groups released a list of their 2023 farm bill priorities, which included expanding access to benefits. Meanwhile, other progressive groups have hosted events like the Food Not Feed Summit to advocate funding for regenerative farming practices.

Greenberg agreed that prioritizing such practices — on global and local scales — contributes to food security and climate resilience. 

“Regional, agriculture and reciprocal relationships between farmers and eaters could yield a food system that actually meets our needs as growers and eaters, as people are trying to survive the last — hopefully the last — gasps of late capitalism,” Greenberg said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: As pandemic-era programs expire, organizers highlight other ways for Vermonters to access free food.

There was actual work happening under the golden dome on Wednesday — the art of crafting law, intense deliberation, the democratic process, etc. — but we’re not here to discuss that. No, the real talk of the Statehouse today was this godforsaken winter storm.

Legislators’ duties continued as scheduled throughout Wednesday, and as I write this silly little newsletter in the evening (from the comfort of my home), House and Senate staff say they plan to press on through Thursday. Numerous lawmakers with long commutes made overnight accommodations in Montpelier and, if need be, senators can Zoom into their hearings at committee chairs’ discretion. (House members technically can, too, but cannot vote via Zoom, and Zoom attendance does not count toward a quorum. The lower chamber, am I right?)

If you didn’t hear about this doozy of a forecast from your weather app, perhaps you read about it in one of Capitol Police Chief Matthew Romei’s exquisite forecast emails, in which he warns lawmakers and staffers of incoming severe weather.

“Looks like quite the barn burner of a storm coming in tomorrow. I haven’t seen preparedness advisories like this in a while,” he wrote yesterday afternoon.

I, for one, can’t believe I’ve gone so long without knowing about these missives. I caught up with the chief today, and he told me his rationale is simple: When lawmakers’ and staffers’ inboxes are flooded, how does he get them to open his emails?

“Any email that I send out, if I am not just absolutely at the end of my day and exhausted, I will try to put an Easter egg in it,” our resident Taylor Swift said. “And they’re usually a little humorous. Rarely are they sketchy… You know, it’s just something for them to look forward to, to give them a break in their day. And to get them to read.”

I happen to know a thing or two about that.

Perhaps my favorite Romei weather scribe came last week, when he wrote, “The ride home tomorrow might get a little sporty…..”

Indeed, yours truly got stuck on the way home last Thursday night. C’est la vie!

— Sarah Mearhoff

IN THE KNOW

On Wednesday morning, lawmakers in the Statehouse cafeteria were greeted with a small breakfast spread, free of charge: cups of granola parfait, homemade cinnamon rolls, and a bowl of apples and individually wrapped pieces of Cabot cheese.

Those offerings were there to illustrate a campaign to make breakfast and lunch in Vermont schools permanently free. 

“The pandemic has been a horrible, horrible thing in so many ways,” said Anore Horton, the executive director of the nonprofit Hunger Free Vermont, which organized the spread. “And the discovery that it’s possible and desirable to do universal school meals is one silver lining.”

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, an infusion of public dollars paid for breakfast and lunch for Vermont public school students. Now, with funds scheduled to dry up after the 2022-2023 school year, advocates are urging lawmakers to make the program permanent.

Legislative leaders, though, have preached caution around spending, noting that federal pandemic dollars are drying up. 

“We will be doing our due diligence this session to carefully consider all needs, recognizing that we don’t have the influx of federal funds that enabled this pilot program this past year,” Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, said in an emailed statement.

Read more here.

— Peter D’Auria

In an afternoon news conference, Attorney General Charity Clark, legislators and advocates unveiled policy recommendations to help tackle Vermont’s domestic violence crisis and prevent cases from becoming deadly.

Specifically, Vermont’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission studies domestic violence cases that resulted in the death of a victim, or someone else related to a domestic violence case. That can mean a responding police officer, a family member, an intervener or the abuser themself.

“Let’s just say it right out: Roughly half of homicides annually in Vermont are related to domestic violence. Half,” Clark said. “And in addition to that, a much larger number, 40,000 people in Vermont, are victims of domestic and sexual violence every year. 40,000 is a very large number.”

Two of the commission’s four categories of recommendations revolve around domestic violence cases which involve law enforcement officers, either as victims or perpetrators. Clark said this is largely because officers who experience domestic violence may be disinclined to report their own abuse to their colleagues. Or, if an officer is perpetrating the abuse, their partner may be afraid to call the police.

The 17-member commission based its four new policy recommendations on research it conducted on five domestic violence-related homicides that occurred in Vermont in 2021. Clark acknowledged that the recommendations have a narrow focus, and are not “meant to be a comprehensive recommendation on how to fix domestic violence.”

“But it’s also important — in a way, it’s nice — they’re bite sized. They’re doable,” she said. “We could do them this session. We could get these across the finish line.”

— Sarah Mearhoff

If you’ve spent any time in the Statehouse, you’ve likely noticed the pages: green-blazered eighth graders, running silent errands between committee rooms. 

But on Wednesday, several legislative pages got the chance to take the mic. Seeking insight into the question, “What does a Vermont education look like?,” the Senate Education Committee called on the resident experts on Vermont education — e.g., the people in the building who were currently living it. 

Lawmakers quizzed pages on their school experience. What were their favorite classes? Answers included math, P.E. and social studies: “The class discussions, at least in my classroom, are really healthy,” said Nadia Frazier, from U-32.

How were school lunches? “School lunch is… I’m less than thrilled about it,” said Elliot Palm, Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School. 

Favorite book? “I read a lot,” said Hannah Young, First Branch Unified School District. “I like a lot of books.”

What did they want to be when they grew up? 

Hannah: Maybe a doctor. 

Elliot: Lawyer, because “I like the debate and argument side of it.”

Nadia: Potential careers include a judge, lawyer, doctor, author, journalist and Broadway actor. 

“It’s kind of all over the place,” she said.

— Peter D’Auria

Testifying to members of the Senate Government Operations Committee on S.17, a bill to reform Vermont sheriffs’ departments, officials from the state auditor’s office revealed that the sheriff of Caledonia County gave himself and his entire department bonuses amounting to $400,000 less than five months before stepping down.

The bonuses, which ranged from $1,359 to $41,112 for 16 people, didn’t violate any regulations. But that’s because the sheriff’s department doesn’t have a bonus policy in place — despite a directive in the Vermont Sheriffs’ Association Uniform Accounting Manual.

“How convenient,” State Auditor Doug Hoffer said in an interview. (The auditor’s office is advocating for a consistent bonus policy across sheriffs’ departments.) Sheriff Dean Shatney, who didn’t seek reelection and whose term ends next week, didn’t respond to messages requesting an interview.

Read more here.

— Tiffany Tan

Vermont is still not meeting its goal of recycling and composting half its waste, according to a new report from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. Vermonters still generate about the same amount of waste as they did ten years ago, when the state’s Universal Recycling Law was passed, the report says. Meanwhile, the state’s only landfill, in Coventry, has only about 20 years’ capacity left. 

“We’re getting buried in our own trash,” said state Rep. Amy Sheldon, D-Middlebury, chair of the House Committee on Environment and Energy.

Read more here.

— Fred Thys

ON THE MOVE

Gov. Phil Scott signed bill H.42 Wednesday, extending Covid-19-era options for how and when the state’s 247 cities and towns decide local leaders, spending and special articles.

“I’m signing this bill at the request of Vermont municipalities who value an extension to pandemic-era flexibilities,” Scott said in a written statement, in which he also echoed some cabinet officials’ concerns about a temporary suspension of requirements for how schools report per-pupil costs on budget ballots. 

The governor also repeated his past objections to the fact the latest bill didn’t call for the automatic mailing of municipal and primary ballots. “As I have said, we should all support increasing voter participation,” he said. “Currently, universal mail-in voting only applies to general elections, which already has the highest voter turnout.”

Read more here.

— Kevin O’Connor

IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR

I’ve got a real juicy scoop for you. Romei reminded me that Girl Scout cookie season is nearly upon us, praise be, and his daughters are here to provide. I hear there will be 15 cases up for grabs. To answer the question nobody asked, I’m a Thin Mint gal.

— Sarah Mearhoff

WHAT WE’RE READING

VTDigger, state square off before Vermont Supreme Court over secret EB-5 documents (VTDigger)

A $400,000 battery pack was removed from the Statehouse over a fire risk (Seven Days)

Burlington neighbors gather to support teen beaten outside home (VTDigger)

Crime pays: Burlington Police officers land a lucrative side gig (Seven Days)

After a chaotic start, Vermont’s first congresswoman finally gets to work (Seven Days)

Covid funds buoy wastewater projects statewide (Community News Service)

Read the story on VTDigger here: Final Reading: Inside the unofficial Statehouse weather service.

On Dec. 23, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that funds the federal government through fiscal year 2023 and contains crucial investments in hunger prevention. 

Continued federal support to address hunger is critical as lower-income families, and those living on fixed incomes, face the winter months with skyrocketing heating, transportation and food costs. 

While we celebrate much of what Congress accomplished in the omnibus package, Hunger Free Vermont is joined by the Community of Vermont Elders, the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging, Vermont Community Action Partnership, and Vermont Kin As Parents in unequivocally opposing the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, known as 3SquaresVT in Vermont) that are included in the package.

Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, many Vermonters have relied on 3SquaresVT and the temporary boost in benefits through emergency allotments, averaging $82 per person per month. More than 70,000 people in our state receive 3SquaresVT and rely on these increased benefits to buy food. 

In 2021, one in three Vermonters experienced hunger; today, two in five Vermonters currently experience food insecurity, which is nearly a 10% increase in the impact of hunger on our families, friends and neighbors since just last year. 

One-person families, which include many older Vermonters, stand to lose up to $260 per month, or 90% of the monthly benefits households have received and relied on for nearly three years. 

The 2023 omnibus bill has eliminated these allotments months earlier than expected, and redirected SNAP funds to establish a multiyear, and hopefully permanent, Summer EBT program for students who receive free or reduced-price cost meals during the school year. This new Summer EBT program will provide $40 per school-age child (less than half of the average emergency allotment per person) in electronic benefits that families can use to buy food at local grocery stores and farmers markets each month of the summer when school meals are not available. 

This is a much-needed initiative and we have long called for the creation of a permanent, federally funded Summer EBT program, particularly important in rural states like Vermont, where it is so difficult to establish and sustain congregate summer meal sites in many of our small towns. 

Ending SNAP Emergency Allotments after February while hunger is at its worst is an unacceptable price that Vermonters living with low incomes must now pay. Families do not have adequate time to prepare for this unexpected cut in benefits and thousands of Vermonters are going to receive considerably less food assistance in 2023, even with Summer EBT payments for families with school-age children. 

Our charitable and emergency food networks, already facing significantly increased need with limited funding, will not be able to fill the gap.

All Vermont families are different, yet we are unified by a fundamental need: food to thrive, to nourish ourselves and our loved ones. For many of us, including more than 9,500 known children being raised by “kin parents,” family is multigenerational, with grandparents caring for grandchildren, aunts and uncles caring for nieces and nephews, sisters and brothers caring for their siblings. 

Cutting SNAP benefits, a nutrition program that serves many different kinds of families, to pay for a child nutrition program is a no-win pattern that we see all too often from Congress. In many cases, families helped by improvements in child nutrition programs are the very same ones harmed by the reduction of their SNAP benefits. 

Taking money from one nutrition program to pay for another does not alleviate the struggle that families and individuals are experiencing. Going into the coldest months of the year in Vermont, with record-high food and heating costs, now is not the time to be sunsetting critical emergency benefits. 

Pitting vital anti-hunger programs against each other will only increase hunger in every corner of our state. In 2023, Congress has the opportunity to use the Farm Bill reauthorization process to permanently increase SNAP benefits and ease the eligibility rules so that everyone facing hunger and food insecurity — from retirees to college students to young workers to single parents — can be healthy and thrive. 

We urge Vermonters to join us in the 2023 Farm Bill Coalition to advocate for improving and strengthening the nutrition programs that many Vermonters depend on. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Anore Horton: Omnibus bill puts families in jeopardy with early end to food benefits.

Sept. 28 marked the first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in more than 50 years. Elected officials, people who have experienced hunger, advocates, nonprofits and private-sector leaders came together to discuss solutions to the ongoing injustice of hunger. 

Far too many in our country know the experience of not having enough food, including many neighbors here in Vermont. Important advancements came from the first conference of this kind, held in 1969, including changes in food and nutrition policy, major expansions of what is now called SNAP/3SquaresVT and School Lunch Program, and the creation of the supplemental feeding program for Women Infants and Children. 

These changes made significant headway in eliminating hunger but, by the 1980s, policy changes and program cuts caused a resurgence in hunger nationwide. 

The goals and recommendations coming from the 2022 conference offer a new chance to make positive, impactful changes for decades to come — but only if we seize this moment for bold action and solutions centered in equity and justice. 

Here in Vermont, more people have experienced hunger this past year than at any other point during the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent data collected by the UVM-led National Food Access and Covid Research Team found that two out of every five people in our state have experienced hunger in the past year. This means thousands across the state are struggling to consistently afford the nourishing foods they need and want. 

As we face the ongoing impacts of the pandemic and inflation, we applaud the timely focus of the White House on hunger and its root causes and we acknowledge the opportunities this renewed focus offers here in Vermont. Holding the conference is a welcome first step, and we call on the White House to be accountable, and to work with Congress to make the investments and implement the solutions outlined in the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. 

Many of the ideas the White House has proposed are tried and tested, and, if implemented, will help to end hunger. We know strategies that work, like permanently expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit and increasing the minimum wage. 

The Expanded Child Tax Credit in 2021 kept 5.3 million people above the poverty line and drove child poverty to the lowest level since 1967. Then it ended. 

The White House has proposed cost-effective investments in nutrition programs that we know will reduce hunger. These include expanding Summer EBT to ensure families with kids can afford groceries when school is out, support for Meals on Wheels, and expanding access to 3SquaresVT so that more people can use the program, including college students and formerly incarcerated individuals. 

But the White House proposal alone is not enough. We can — and should — do more. The White House strategy aims to decrease the number of households going without food, and to cut the number of households struggling to afford enough food, in half. In Vermont, that would mean one in five of us would still be facing hunger. 

We have a vision for ending hunger that doesn’t leave behind half of neighbors experiencing hunger. The federal government must act to ensure that federal nutrition programs like SNAP, school meals, and Meals on Wheels can meet the needs of people facing hunger. 

● We need a national, permanent universal school meals program. 

● We need SNAP benefits to cover the true cost of nutritious food. 

● We need investments to help organizations like the Vermont Foodbank meet the unprecedented demand that food shelves and pantries are facing across the state.

● We need to address the root causes of hunger, not just a system that lifts some individuals out of poverty temporarily, and excludes others.

● We need systems that allow everyone to have access to nourishing, dignified food. 

● We need to address race-based inequities in access to food, and to ensure our systems don’t require families to make impossible choices in meeting basic needs. 

Let’s not let this historic moment go to waste, or the national strategy to gather dust. We are ready, and we are committed to doing the work alongside the federal government, state government, and our partners in the public and private sectors. Together we can end hunger.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Horton & Sayles: White House Conference on Hunger offers a moment to build on.

Gov. Phil Scott signed bills Tuesday that will create a one-year pilot program of free breakfast and lunch for Vermont students and ban offensive school mascots.

The governor’s signatures represent victories for anti-hunger advocates and for activists who have pushed to retire mascots that stereotype marginalized communities, most visibly Indigenous people.  

During the pandemic, federal dollars paid for free school meals for students. But legislation extending that program has stalled in the U.S. Senate, and money is expected to run out before the upcoming school year. 

Backed by the nonprofit Hunger Free Vermont, legislators proposed using surplus education fund money to extend the program through the next school year. Lawmakers approved S.100, a plan to create a $29 million, one-year program to provide free breakfast and lunch to Vermont students who attend public school, or independent schools with public tuition money. 

Scott initially appeared unenthusiastic about the plan, suggesting that funding a one-year pilot might lead to future tax hikes.

“Creating a new universal program with one-time money could, as the Legislature has discussed, lead to regressive tax increases that in part pay for meals for children from affluent families who do not need the financial help,” Scott spokesperson Jason Maulucci said in late April. 

But on Tuesday, Scott signed the bill anyway.  

“As the Governor has said, he supports the state doing more to help vulnerable families in need — but he will not support forcing working families to pay more in taxes to essentially pay for the more affluent to get free meals,” Maulucci said Tuesday in an email. “But, that will be a debate for next year if the Legislature chooses to pursue that path.”

Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, said the organization was “thrilled” at the news of the governor’s decision. 

“We’re confident that universal school meals is going to prove its value in the coming year, and that the Legislature will make it a permanent program,” Horton said.

Scott also signed S.139, which will require the Vermont Agency of Education to create a “nondiscriminatory school branding policy.” 

That policy will prohibit schools from having mascots or other identifying materials based on “the race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity of any person or group of persons,” or any person or group “associated with the repression of others.”

That bill was introduced just days after the Rutland School Board voted to reinstate the high school’s controversial Native American-themed mascot, the Raiders. 

Lawmakers approved the proposal by a comfortable margin, but not before it sparked a debate about local control. Opponents argued that the bill would undermine school districts’ ability to make their own decisions and policies.

“Every year, more and more control is taken by this building, and by this town, and by officials in our government in Montpelier,” outgoing Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, R-Stowe, said of the bill during a floor debate earlier this month. 

But the bill’s supporters, including Indigenous Vermonters, argued that offensive mascots inflict psychological harm on students, especially those who belong to the communities being stereotyped. 

“When we as a society marginalize and shape human beings into caricatures, we are complicit in the violence against them, metaphorically and literally,” Melody Walker Brook, a citizen of the Elnu Abenaki, told lawmakers in submitted testimony in February. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Phil Scott signs bills on free school meals, offensive school mascots.

Late last year, state officials announced good news for Vermont’s education fund. 

Buoyed by strong tax revenues, the fund — which pays for the state’s public school budgets — is enjoying a surplus of nearly $100 million.

Now, as the legislature wonders what to do with that extra cash, lawmakers may be forced to choose from several different proposals: Free breakfast and lunch for students? Remediating toxic chemicals? Tax rebates?

“It’s a choice that nobody who works in the field of education would want to make,” said Jeff Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association. 

For the past two years, federal pandemic aid has footed the bill for breakfast and lunch for Vermont’s public school students. But with that money expected to expire at the end of the school year, anti-hunger advocates are urging state lawmakers to pay for it. 

The nonprofit Hunger Free Vermont has thrown its weight behind S.100, a Senate bill that would allocate $29 million from the education fund surplus toward a one-year pilot program of breakfast and lunch for Vermont kids. 

The bill as written also would cover children who attend independent schools with public tuition money. 

Advocates argue that paying for all children’s meals improves kids’ physical and mental health and leads to better academic outcomes. And funding meals for everyone, they say, eliminates stigma and covers low-income students whose families may not meet federal income limits.

“It’s a school meals bill, it’s a support-our-farmers bill, it’s a mental health bill, it’s an improve-learning-and-focus bill,” Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, said at a rally in support of the bill on the Statehouse steps last week. “It’s a universal bill for good.”

Lawmakers passed that bill out of the House of Representatives on Wednesday. But some have proposed different uses for the surplus money.

Gov. Phil Scott has called for lawmakers to put half the surplus toward career and technical education and send the other half back to taxpayers. In an email Wednesday, Jason Maulucci, a spokesperson for Scott, said the governor still favors that plan. 

“Regarding the Legislature’s other priorities with this money, the Governor has said he supports helping those in need receive free school meals at school,” Maulucci said. “However, creating a new universal program with one-time money could, as the legislature has discussed, lead to regressive tax increases that in part pay for meals for children from affluent families who do not need the financial help.”

Others have called on lawmakers to use the money to clean up polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in school buildings. 

The substances, which are believed to cause a range of health problems, including cancer, were used widely in building materials until they were banned around 1980. 

In 2020, school administrators discovered the chemicals in Burlington High School, forcing students to abandon the school for a retrofitted department store. The district hopes to build a new high school at a cost of roughly $230 million. 

Next month, state officials plan to launch a program to test more than 300 Vermont schools for the chemicals. But that initiative is causing concern for many districts, which fear the potential costs if the chemicals are found in their schools. 

School officials have called on the Legislature to set aside money for remediating school buildings if PCBs are detected — from the education fund, if necessary. 

That PCB remediation money is “the highest priority,” said Francis, of the superintendents association.

“My hope is that the General Assembly sees fit to put money into PCB remediation,” he said. “And as part of their process, if they provide money for universal school meals as well, that’s great.”

Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington, chair of the Senate Education Committee, has also expressed skepticism about using the education fund surplus for universal meals. 

[See the latest status on key pieces of legislation using VTDigger’s 2022 Bill Tracker.]

“Right now, I don’t think it makes sense to use one-time monies without a plan going forward,” Campion said. “But I’m going to listen when the bill comes into a committee. I want to pull apart why the House decided to do what they decided to do.”

As most of Vermont’s schools have not been tested, it’s still unclear how much money would be needed for PCB remediation. But estimates put that figure at around $40 million. 

Other states plagued by PCB contamination have found another source of cleanup funds: litigation. 

Over the past few years, Bayer, the parent company of longtime PCB manufacturer Monsanto, has paid out tens of millions of dollars in settlements to U.S. states over PCB contamination. Earlier this year, New Hampshire received a $25 million settlement over PCBs in waterways. 

Asked about the possibility of litigation over PCBs in Vermont, Charity Clark, the chief of staff in the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, said the agency “is aware of this issue and is looking into it.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the committee that Sen. Brian Campion chairs.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Universal school meals. PCB remediation. Tech education. Can a $95 million surplus pay for it all?.

A legislative committee has approved a bill that would provide free school meals to Vermont students for the upcoming school year but would leave future years still in question.

The House Committee on Education voted 9-2 on Thursday to approve S.100, known as the Universal School Meals Act. The legislation would use $29 million in surplus funds to pay for breakfast and lunch for every public school student in the state. 

The bill still has a ways to go before becoming law. But the committee vote represents a step toward forestalling — at least temporarily — a situation that lawmakers feared: that Vermont school children could be forced to go hungry at school. 

For the past two years, federal Covid relief dollars have paid for breakfast and lunch for all public school students. But amid opposition from key Republican lawmakers in Washington, it’s unclear if that money will be renewed for upcoming school years. 

Amid that uncertainty, anti-hunger advocates have been urging Vermont lawmakers to find public money to pay for breakfast and lunch for the state’s schoolchildren.

“Working families are struggling to get by, and to be able to afford to live in Vermont,” Faye Mack, an administrator with the nonprofit Hunger Free Vermont, told the committee on April 6. “And these are the families that we’re talking about here. The solution is universal school meals.”

For weeks, committee members have been trying to find a way to pay for those meals. 

Lawmakers had initially considered adding taxes on sweetened beverages, candy and computer software to implement a permanent universal meals program. But Gov. Phil Scott’s administration has been staunchly opposed to that proposal. 

Asked for his thoughts on the plan at an April 5 press conference, Scott said “no” before a reporter finished asking the question.

“I mean, in this time of unprecedented budget surplus, this is the last resort,” he said. “We’re not going to increase taxes now. That makes no sense to me at all at this point.”

The House voted in late March to set aside part of a roughly $96 million surplus in the state’s education fund, the product of unexpectedly high state revenues, to pay for the meals. 

With Thursday’s vote, the committee would use $29 million of that surplus to pay for all public school students’ breakfast and lunch, regardless of their families’ income, for the 2022-2023 school year. The committee also expanded the program to include Vermont students who receive public tuition money to attend private schools within the state. 

Since the program would rely on a temporary revenue bump, it covers only one year. But the proposed legislation includes provisions aimed at finding a more permanent funding source in the future.  

The bill would direct the Agency of Education to report to lawmakers by January 2023 about “student participation rates” and “strategies for minimizing the use of State funds.”

Legislative economists would meanwhile be tasked with drafting a report “examining possible revenue sources including expansion of the sales tax base, enactment of an excise tax on sugar sweetened beverages, and other sources of revenue not ordinarily used for General Fund purposes.”  

“The work that we’re doing here respected the governor’s request not to bring forth additional revenue sources this year,” said Rep. Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, the chair of the House Education Committee. “What we are doing is allowing a year for us to actually collect real data.”

Anti-hunger advocates hailed the advancement of the bill. 

“We know that only when kids are well fed can they access the learning they need, and we know that students who receive free and reduced lunches feel the strain of socioeconomic stigma,” said Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont. “It is our job as a state to provide equal access and set our kids up to succeed.”

But Jason Maulucci, a spokesperson for Scott, did not say explicitly whether the governor would support the legislation.

“We understand the House has turned this into a one-year pilot program, but they have been clear they’re looking at funding it long-term with new taxes,” Maulucci said. “We will have to wait to see what happens in the Senate, but with record surpluses and unprecedented federal funding at our disposal, the last thing we should be doing is contemplating tax hikes.”

The bill must now be approved by the House Committee on Ways and Means and the House Committee on Appropriations before it reaches the House floor. Since the Senate signed off on an earlier version of the bill last year, the two chambers would have to reconcile their differences before sending it to Scott.

Read the story on VTDigger here: House committee approves bill to fund free school meals — but only for next year.

Vermont families with children were five times more likely to experience hunger in 2021, according to a survey from the University of Vermont. And as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact income and long-term savings, kids’ nutrition is attended to for many at one place — school. 

As the pandemic spread, the federal government stepped in with waivers that allowed all children to eat breakfast and lunch at school at no cost to their families. These waivers are set to expire in June, and childhood hunger is still a constant threat for far too many Vermonters. 

Why are we thinking of taking food away from our kids when they still need it? 

Vermont’s House Education Committee is digging into a bill, H.32, that would require all schools to offer two meals per day to every student, without charge, making school meals an educational expense, as they should be. 

We hope the committee and all legislators will support that bill. 

You may ask, “How do free breakfast and lunches for Vermont students impact the economy, business community, and myself?” The answer is simple: Kids who are well-fed can more easily develop, grow and learn. 

By empowering them to sit in class without hunger pangs and brain fog, we are helping students succeed in their studies and to eventually join — and lead — Vermont’s workforce. 

As business owners, we are looking for every edge we can find these days. Being able to recruit workers into Vermont by telling them their kids get a great education here, and they will be fed and focused because our schools provide healthy meals, is a significant benefit. These meals — which include many local foods — are available to every student, every day, and would make a difference for our businesses. 

When parents or guardians aren’t stressed about getting their kids’ meals packed in the morning, or remembering to charge up their school meals accounts, one important item is lifted from their own plates. 

And when our Vermont students are treated equitably, and don’t have to face stigma in the cafeteria, they can learn better and focus on following their passions, making them more likely to succeed at school and later the workforce. 

Universal school meals are good for students, good for business, and good for Vermont — we hope the Vermont Legislature will enact it this year.

We invite you to add your name to the list of businesses and organizations who have signed on in support of universal school meals.

Signing on to this commentary:

The Abbey Group, Enosburg Falls 

The Alchemist, Stowe

Cabot Creamery, Waitsfield

City Market Onion River Co-op, Burlington 

Clean Yield Asset Management, Norwich 

CW Creative, Barre 

Forward Philanthropy, Montpelier 

Grass Cattle Company, Charlotte 

Groennfell Meadery, St. Albans 

Hotel Vermont, Burlington 

King Arthur Baking, Norwich 

Lake Champlain Chamber

Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op, Middlebury 

National Life Group, Montpelier 

Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility

Read the story on VTDigger here: Cathy Davis: Universal school meals are good for business.

At a news conference Wednesday highlighting school nutrition expansions in Democrats’ proposed domestic budget, Vermont’s U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders urged his colleagues to vote ”yes” on the budget quickly, saying “the stakes are enormous.”

Sanders was joined by U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and other stakeholders in St. Johnsbury to tout provisions in President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan that would — among many other things — expand nutritional assistance to schools, enabling more children to receive free and reduced-price meals.

Those provisions are important, Sanders said, though they’re “a very small part of this overall bill.” The multitrillion-dollar package also includes proposals to address climate change, establish universal and free pre-kindergarten, continue child tax credits via direct payments to families, invest in affordable housing and more.

“What we are trying to do is address the needs that working people are facing in America that have been neglected for decades,” Sanders said. “So this is a complicated bill.”

Sanders plays a key role in negotiations as chair of the Senate Budget Committee. He’s made headlines sparring with moderate U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, who have been pushing to scale back the proposed social programs to keep the price tag down.

With a razor-thin 50-50 majority in the Senate, Sanders needs every single Democrat in the Senate to vote “yes.” In the House, the margin of error isn’t much larger.

“That means that any one member can say, ‘Well, you know what, I don’t like that provision,’ and you’ve got to go back to the drawing board,” he said. “So this has been an enormously difficult process but … the stakes are enormous and we cannot fail.”

Should the budget pass with current proposals to expand nutrition assistance programs, every school in Vermont could provide free meals to all of its students, Sanders and Welch said. And with universal eligibility, they said children may feel more comfortable taking their free meals.

For many children who rely on school for meals, a school closure or mandatory quarantine due to Covid means they won’t eat a healthy meal, if any at all.

Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, said the provisions present a “transformational opportunity” to address childhood and family hunger.

“There’s no going back to some normal before this pandemic when it comes to schools and school meals,” she said. “There will only be taking food away from kids who are getting it now and we must not let that happen and we don’t have to let that happen.”

The news conference came less than a week after Welch and 227 of his House colleagues passed a $1 trillion nationwide infrastructure package, from which Vermont is set to receive $2.2 billion for roads, bridges, water systems, broadband and more. 

The package, which is on its way to the president’s desk for his signature, is one of two hallmark pieces of legislation championed by Biden’s White House, the second being the Build Back Better budget.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Sanders, Welch urge yes vote on Build Back Better, citing school nutrition expansions.

Instead of pushing ahead with legislation to make school meals free to all K-12 students in Vermont, top senators now say they will work to advance a measure to expand income-based eligibility for subsidized breakfast and lunch. 

The change in direction comes as lawmakers face mounting pressure from local school officials over the cost of a universal mandate. But anti-hunger advocates say that instead of taking a step in the right direction, legislators are moving backward with their latest proposal.

The new plan to expand eligibility is “a terrible idea” and “antithetical” to the original goals of S.100, said Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont.

“We will actively oppose anything like this that comes to the floor with our network and everything that we have,” Horton said. “Because this is not a step towards universal meals. This is an enshrinement in state statute of the broken federal system that we oppose and that is harming our students.”

After delaying a vote on the bill last week, senators on Friday voted to “let lie” S.100, effectively rendering it dormant. The move often means that a bill is dead for the session, but Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, a strong backer of the measure, said that this was very much not the case and instead a parliamentary maneuver to give senators more time to find a way to address the proposal’s hefty price tag.

“We have not killed the bill. The bill is still alive. We are still working on it,” Balint said. “We fully anticipate to be able to call it back up and vote it out next week. That’s still the plan.”

As originally introduced, the measure would have required schools to pay the difference between federal aid and what a universal meal program would have cost — a plan most education officials considered a nonstarter. Lawmakers last week suggested tweaking the funding mechanism to pay for meal programs directly out of the state’s Education Fund, a move that would have changed nothing from the state’s perspective but decreased the tax consequences for local districts.

This latest iteration of the proposal retains that tweak but also fundamentally narrows the scope of the proposal. Instead of a universal meal program, lawmakers are now considering using the income thresholds set by Dr. Dynasaur, the state’s publicly funded health insurance program for low-income children, to decide which kids qualify for free meals.

Tying eligibility for subsidized meals to Dr. Dynasaur income standards would make an estimated 16,000 additional students able to eat for free, according to Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, who chairs the Senate Committee on Appropriations. Instead of costing the state between $24 million and $40 million — the estimated price of the universal program, according to legislative analysts — the new plan would cost closer to $10 million to $14 million a year, according to Kitchel.

“When it comes time, do you want to spend that $20 million for better books or enrichment in your schools or buying meals for higher-income kids?” she said. “Those become very tough choices.”

But the Senate’s newest fix could create financial incentives for districts that already provide universal meals to stop doing so, Horton said, and be administratively burdensome to implement. What’s worse, she said, instead of targeting funds where they are most needed, the latest proposal would not address the problem.

Many students who do not eat at school already qualify, Horton said, but don’t participate because it sets them apart from their peers — something only a universal program would remedy.

“We have only good evidence to suggest that many students will continue to not eat meals that they need and are eligible for,” she said. “And many families will continue to not fill out these forms because the stigma of school meals will remain.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Free school meals for all? Senators temper their ambitions.

When Peter Carmolli opened South Burlington’s first food shelf in November 2019, he wasn’t expecting a global pandemic to strike a few months later. Covid-19 completely upended his operations.

About half of Carmolli’s volunteer staff stepped down in March 2020 because they were in the at-risk age group for Covid-19. Meanwhile, the food shelf’s workload was growing — food insecurity was on the rise nationwide.

In Vermont, 70,580 people are currently struggling with hunger, according to Feeding America. Since the pandemic’s onset, nearly 30 percent of Vermonters have experienced food insecurity — almost triple 2018 levels — a study by the University of Vermont found.

“We were just figuring out what to do when the apocalypse hit. We are now relearning what to do,” Carmolli said. “The timing couldn’t have been better or worse, depending on your perspective.”

Initially, the charity’s board met to discuss whether to remain open. Gretchen Gundrum, a board member and South Burlington resident who has been using the food shelf’s services since 2019, strongly advocated continuing to serve the community.

Gundrum recognized from her own experiences as a single mother of two children with special needs that it would be more difficult to juggle child care and find gainful employment in the pandemic. She wanted to ensure that the food shelf would be open for neighbors dealing with similar concerns.

“Even when you’re facing a financial setback, you still have to eat,” Gundrum said. “What you see a lot is people having to choose: Do you pay your light bill or put food on the table?”

The board decided to keep the food shelf open, and about 30 separate households per week now use the service. Carmolli and his volunteer staff give out between 70 and 80 pounds of food and supplies to each household, totaling more than 2,000 pounds per week.

Since the food shelf opened its doors in 2019, Carmolli has missed work just two days.

Staff at Lamoille Community Food Share in Morrisville struggled, too, with increased need — visits were up by 59 percent last year, according to Susan Rousselle, the community engagement coordinator. Although numbers began to level off in January, it was still a record-breaking month for the food share.

“The greatest challenge is keeping up with demand,” Rousselle said.

Interrupted supply chains have made it more time-consuming to order food. The loss of volunteer support (many at Lamoille were also over age 65), meant more labor for the remaining workers.

Beyond the sheer amount of food and supplies that needed to be distributed, Carmolli suddenly had to navigate ever-changing safety guidelines to keep his staff, clients and himself Covid-free. Donations are left untouched for 24 hours before distribution, staff frequently wash and sanitize their hands, and volunteers prepack bags of food that Carmolli hands to clients outside while everyone wears masks and stays at least 6 feet apart.

Carmolli limits contact with clients for safety reasons, but he considers social interactions an essential part of the job.

“People need food, but sometimes they also need to talk,” he said. “So many people have no contacts. The mental health aspect is something you have to keep in mind along with the physical health.”

His greatest challenge? Not being able to give someone a big hug when it’s the No. 1 sense of connection they need.

Barriers to help

Another barrier that Carmolli has worked to overcome is the stigma of receiving food assistance. Many customers are embarrassed about using the food shelf, he said. There is a similar stigma associated with federal programs like 3SquaresVT, Vermont’s version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“The message [from leaders in the federal government] has been loud and clear that, if you seek out government assistance, there is something wrong with you. To me, this is outrageous,” said Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont. “The causes of hunger are not moral, and they are not personal. They are purely economic and systemic.”

Horton also lamented the lack of effort put into promoting 3SquaresVT at the governor’s twice-weekly press conferences. Although charitable projects like Everyone Eats and food shelves are doing essential work, Horton thinks they have received a disproportionate amount of attention while federal programs have largely been ignored.

Food shelves have reported an increase in donations, and there is more collaboration across the state to help fill in gaps, according to Carmolli.

Community networks have also been expanded to include producers and farmers. For instance, Lamoille Community Food Share, based in Morrisville, began buying local products to make up for supply-chain disruptions at the national level and plans to continue these partnerships into the future.

“We’re all in this together,” Carmolli said.

To find out if you’re eligible for 3SquaresVT or to apply: https://vermontfoodhelp.com 
To find a food shelf in your area: https://www.vtfoodbank.org/agency-locator
To participate in Everyone Eats: https://vteveryoneeats.org/find-a-meal 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Virus in Vermont: Food shelves struggle to keep up as pandemic drags on.

The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues. Listen below and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts.

Hunger is growing in Vermont. The rate of Vermonters experiencing food insecurity has gone from 1 in 10 before the pandemic to 1 in 4 today. Last summer, people waited hours in line for mass food distributions around the state, but those distributions are ending. A groundbreaking new program has just launched called Everyone Eats, in which Vermont restaurants are paid to provide food for Vermonters in need, achieving the twin goals of employing food workers and feeding Vermonters. However, this program will end in December unless Congress reauthorizes emergency funding.

John Sayles, CEO of Vermont Foodbank, Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, and Jean Hamilton, program coordinator for Everyone Eats, discuss the changing face of the hunger crisis and how it is being addressed.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Conversation: Vermont’s growing hunger crisis.

When schools went virtual in the spring, food service directors leapt into action and, within days, redesigned their programs from top to bottom, packing buses with bagged breakfasts and lunches to deliver meals daily directly to hundreds of families.

This week, they’ll pivot all over again.

Students return to class on Tuesday, and while reopening plans run the gamut, the vast majority rely on a mix of in-person and remote learning. That means schools not only deliver meals to those physically in school, but also to the thousands learning from home on any given day. 

“Like with every other aspect of getting schools and child care up and running this fall, school meals are in flux,” said Anore Horton, executive director of the statewide nonprofit Hunger Free Vermont.

Even for kids learning in the building, it won’t be simple, since students cannot crowd into cafeterias to sit at long tables side-by-side with dozens of other kids to eat. As for the students logging in via Zoom, schools can no longer rely on buses to transport food to their doors. To pull that off, nutrition programs had deputized bus drivers, paraeducators, and other staff to prepare, package, and deliver meals. But bus drivers will once again be transporting kids, and instructional aides will be back in the classroom. 

In Burlington, preK-2 students onsite will have their meals delivered to their classrooms, where children will eat their food at their socially distanced desks, according to assistant food service director Heather Torrey. Older students will mostly pick up their food in the cafeteria (they will be released on a staggered schedule) and then eat back in class.

As for those attending school from home, Torrey said the district is mulling both bulk food distribution sites and some form of home delivery. But she admits freely the district is still figuring that out. “I imagine this evolving rapidly,” she said.

And Torrey, who is also the outgoing president of the School Nutrition Association of Vermont, said one concern looms over every food director in the state: supply chain shortages.

“So we have our plan — and we think our plan is awesome. But say, for example, our takeout containers get back-ordered,” she said.

In the Addison Northwest and Mount Abraham Union school districts, Kathy Alexander, who runs their joint food service program, jokes that she is, at this point, “numb to logistical problems.”

“In March, it was like getting hit by a truck and having to just regroup so fast and everything was coming at us. And now we’re a little bit like, that’s how we operate,” she said. “I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.”

Nevertheless, Alexander says she and her staff are thrilled they’ll get to see kids again. In the districts she serves, elementary-age children will grab their breakfasts as they enter the building and eat the meals in their homerooms; lunch will be carted directly into classrooms. In staggered cohorts, high school students will pick up pre-packaged meals from kiosks and return to class to eat.

For kids learning remotely, the district plans a once-weekly pickup for students and parents to pick up multiple days worth of food. But Alexander said it’s likely the schedule could change, and home delivery might happen for certain families.

“I think that school meal programs are going to be making adjustments in real time as schools reopen,” Horton said.

The financial and regulatory framework that school meal programs are operating under is also subject to change. Last Monday, anti-hunger advocates cheered when the USDA, under pressure from lawmakers, announced it would extend a series of waivers that let schools feed all kids for free using a variety of pandemic-era distribution methods.

As late as mid-August, the Trump administration was insisting it would not extend the waivers, and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue warned this week that they could still sunset before the year ends if funding runs out. 

Horton emphasized it was “very good news” that the USDA ultimately did reverse course. But she said the announcement’s late arrival and the fact that the waivers could end with little notice made it hard for schools to plan ahead. 

For her part, Alexander says she hopes the temporary waivers will serve as proof of concept for universal free meals, a policy long-sought by advocates and many education officials. But she admits she’s nervous about the federal government again changing its mind.

“It’s hard to even imagine what that email would look like. When it says: ‘We ran out of money.’ So I’m kind of not thinking about right now,” she said.

The surprise news also came with little technical guidance from the USDA, and schools now have a slew of unanswered questions about how the waivers interact with the complex bureaucracy surrounding the federal lunch program. In Burlington, for example, Torrey said she’s unsure if using the waivers will mean the district cannot apply for another program that would have guaranteed free meals to all kids for at least the next four years.

Read the story on VTDigger here: As they reopen, schools once again have to reinvent lunchtime.

A coalition of anti-hunger organizations are warning lawmakers that food distribution services could disappear without more funding to meet the state’s growing food insecurity needs during the coronavirus pandemic. 

In an open letter to policymakers, organization heads said they need $18 million more in funding to continue providing food to low-income or food-insecure Vermonters. They’re also asking for an additional $20 million to be allocated to 3SquaresVT, the state’s food stamp system. 

Vermont has seen a staggering demand for donated food since the pandemic struck. Hundreds of cars have lined up for distribution sites. Some spent hours waiting for food, only to be turned away empty handed because there wasn’t enough to meet the demand. 

Demand is so high that the State Emergency Operations Center is now requiring registration for meal distribution sites. 

Feeding America, a hunger relief organization, estimates that the number of food insecure people in Vermont has increased by 46% and that child food insecurity in Vermont has increased by 60%. The Vermont Foodbank has seen an 800% increase at some partner and distribution sites. 

Hunger Free Vermont works with the Agency of Education to coordinate the delivery of meals to local school districts. Anore Horton, executive director of the organization, said families can no longer congregate to collect meals at local schools and so the program must deliver food, which is driving up costs.  

Horton said the Agency of Education surveyed schools and found that 65% have said they won’t be able to afford continuing to deliver meals. 

That means hundreds of children may go hungry this summer, Horton said. Hunger Free Vermont estimates that out of the $18 million requested, $12 million would be needed to prop up meal deliveries for children through the summer. 

“We either are going to have the most comprehensive summer meals program that we’ve ever had in Vermont this summer,” Horton said. “Or the entire program is going to collapse and be an incredible failure.” 

The Vermont Foodbank’s distributions of food will also have to scale back if it doesn’t receive increased funding to organize the allocation of food throughout the summer, said Nicole Whalen, director of communications for the organization. She said the Foodbank is looking for about $4.6 million to keep up with the increased demand. 

“This is a time where, in general, we are calling on the state to step up and take on a more significant role in helping ensure there is funding for people facing hunger,” Whalen said. “But especially right now. There is no way we can continue to operate at our current levels.” 

The flow of food to the organization isn’t the problem, Whalen said. The Foodbank can receive up to 1.6 million pounds of food per month from the Farmers to Families Food Box program, which is a new federal initiative in which the government is buying up food from farmers to pass on to Americans in need during the pandemic. 

But getting all of that food to Vermonters is a heavy lift, which is why the National Guard members who are helping to pass out the food at distribution events are essential to the success of the program, Horton said. But there’s concern that the Guard’s involvement may end soon. 

In the food providers’ letter to lawmakers, it said the National Guard was planning to pull out of these events by mid-June. However, Chris Herrick, deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, said there was a misunderstanding. The Guard is not planning to pull out mid-June. He said the Guard is prepared to continue distributing food until the end of the month.

Herrick said the Emergency Management division will assign a “planner” to work with food banks to make an “organized, methodical transition to a more community based distribution plan come the end of month.”

Whalen and Horton had a call with a group of lawmakers Monday morning about the requests for more funding. Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, said she wants more details about what money has already been used and how additional funds would increase access to food. 

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee will send a proposal for funding needs to the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

But given that the state’s federal CARES Act money has been claimed by various proposals, deciding how much to allocate to any interest is becoming more difficult. 

“There are a lot of little pieces,” Lyons said. “I certainly support their request moving forward to make sure we have food insecurity addressed. How much is it going to cost is the other question.” 

Correction: The National Guard did not send a letter to lawmakers, as referenced in an earlier version of this story.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Food sites could ‘collapse’ without more funding.

The Deeper Dig is a biweekly podcast from the VTDigger newsroom, hosted and produced by Sam Gale Rosen. Listen below, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Images of miles-long lines of cars waiting hours to receive free food have become powerful symbols of the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. They also show a flawed response to a longstanding problem, hunger relief advocates say.

“We’re never going to meet the unmet need by throwing more and more food box distributions at it,” said Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont.

Recent food distribution events have seen the launch of a new federal program, called Farmers to Families, that aims to connect local producers to people in need. But at the first event earlier this month in Berlin, hundreds of people went home empty handed.

Horton said those federal resources could have been better put towards expanding existing food assistance programs. Mass distribution events are “an insane way to take care of one of people’s most basic human needs that we all have,” she said, “when we could have just put that money into the SNAP program and expanded who can access benefits.”

Advocates say that while the need right now is acute — food insecurity in Vermont has gone up 50% during the crisis, by one estimate — there’s a sizable number of Vermonters who were facing food insecurity before Covid-19.

The state is working to streamline hunger relief efforts, which are currently handled by a patchwork of nonprofit and government entities. But advocates are calling on state officials to move more aggressively to address the problem and fund solutions.

**Podcast transcript**

This week: tens of thousands of Vermonters have lined up to receive food assistance during the Covid-19 pandemic. But those on the front lines of hunger relief say that feeding the massive number of people in need is going to require more than just meal giveaways.

Last Friday, the Vermont Foodbank and the Vermont National Guard took over the state airport in Berlin to hand out food.

Guard members moved pallets of milk crates and produce boxes around the tarmac. Drivers pulled up with their trunks open, soldiers loaded them up with about 50 pounds of food apiece, and then sent them away.

This was the first distribution event where families received fresh food instead of the military-style meals ready to eat, or MREs. Jason Maring from the Vermont Foodbank said this was part of a new federal program to connect local producers and distributors with people in need.

Jason Maring: We transitioned from MREs to more of a nonperishable food box, which is provided by FEMA, and then the USDA has provided the fresh food boxes.

There were boxes of Cabot cheese, and vegetables from Black River Produce. But the most striking aspect of the event was the lines. About 2,000 cars showed up to the site. They lined two runways, doubling back multiple times, and then stretched for miles along the road leading to the entrance. People waited for hours.

Driver: I’ve been waiting for about an hour. I may just cut out of line.

The fresh food ran out midway through the event. And about four hours in, they closed the site. Hundreds of people went home empty handed. One of them was Rebecca Vickery.

Rebecca Vickery: Hi, this is Rebecca.

Hi Rebecca. My name is Elizabeth Gribkoff…

Our reporter Elizabeth Gribkoff caught up with her after the event.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: So Rebecca Vickery, she’s a mother who lives in Essex. She has six kids in her care, including two foster children. Rebecca has her own voiceover business. She also previously had worked as a worship director but was laid off — prior to the pandemic, but not too long ago.

My impression was that Rebecca, like a lot of other Vermonters, has a lot of different strategies that she’ll use to ensure that her family is adequately fed. Of course that includes going to the grocery store, but she was saying something that’s been challenging lately is that prices of food have started to go up in stores, especially on items like meat.

Things aren’t always available. And she was saying, typically I like to try to shop sales, but at this point it’s kind of like you have to take what you can get.

Rebecca Vickery: It’s harder to find some things like in the store that you would normally be able to find affordably. Costco for example, has limits on the amount of food that you can purchase. And right now, I have six children in my care. Two of them are foster children. And so we’re in a family of eight, and you tell us that we can buy the same amount of food as a family of two? It doesn’t make sense.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: So she’s been supplementing that with going to different food pantry things.

Rebecca Vickery: There’s now some free meal programs like Mark’s Barbecue in Essex, Vermont, and the Skinny Pancake does, they call them, ShiftMeals. They do Tuesdays and Fridays. And I was picking up meals for some people from both of those.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: She had been one of the many people who were waiting to get food at the Berlin airport. And like a lot of other people, she ended up leaving.

Rebecca Vickery: The event closed like an hour and a half earlier, and so they had been telling us there was nothing left, but then obviously there was, because people were still waiting in the line. So it was like, I don’t want to go until they’re like officially, “no, you’re done.” Because we were picking up food for three other families as well.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: She said, Oh, it was a nice day. I didn’t mind waiting. But obviously leaving without any food, especially having driven from Essex over to Berlin, I think that was definitely a frustrating experience. It took a lot of time to get there, and I think to have waited to be trying to get food was hard.

Rebecca Vickery: It was a beautiful day, and we were surrounded by people. And it kind of felt, like, normal-ish. Except for, the scope of it was the most breathtakingly — I don’t know. I’m a word person, and I don’t even have the words. Because looking at the line of people coming from both directions, I have never seen a line like that in my entire life for anything. And it was just breathtaking. Because it was like, there are so many people here, and they wouldn’t be waiting in a line like that if they did not feel such desperation to feed their families.

I was there on Friday. I saw the lines, I saw people waiting in their cars. And we’ve been seeing scenes like this both around Vermont at other meal distributions and around the country, and it’s feeling like this very powerful symbol, all these people lined up for food. Do we have a sense of how severe the problem actually is?

Elizabeth Gribkoff: We do, and we don’t, I guess, if that makes sense. Vermont Foodbank told me that during April, they served 83% more food than they do in a normal month. So that’s an incredibly drastic amount.

And I spoke with this researcher at UVM, Dr. Meredith Niles. She and some other researchers had completed a survey kind of toward the beginning of the pandemic, like end of March/early April, about food insecurity in Vermont. And they found from that survey, there’s about a third more Vermonters experiencing food insecurity right now.

Meredith Niles: There is a high level of, percentage of, people who are consistently food insecure. So they were food insecure prior to Covid and stayed food insecure. Then there is a sizable — about a third of those people aren’t usually food insecure, meaning they were not food insecure in the year prior to Covid, but they are since the Covid outbreak. And that is significantly associated with job disruption and job loss.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: She also did point out, they’re doing some followup work on that. Because she pointed out that that would have been before a lot of people maybe would have gotten unemployment benefits and things like that. So they’re curious, to what extent did receiving those benefits impact food security?

Of course, we’ve also reported on how for many, there’s some people who still haven’t gotten those benefits. So that’s just something they’re trying to get a better understanding of. What are the levels of food insecurity right now in Vermont?

What do we do about that? When you talk to advocates, and people who work in hunger relief, what do they think is the best way forward here?

Elizabeth Gribkoff: I spoke with Anore Horton, who’s the executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, and something she was stressing was that efforts like that mass food distribution event in Berlin are not really a long term, or more sustainable, way to address this problem. And of course, also, we got tons of emails from readers who said they weren’t able to get food at that. So it’s certainly addressed acute needs for some people, but also clearly there were other people for whom it didn’t.

Anore Horton: Look, we have a structural problem. This is a longstanding problem that the coronavirus is throwing into sharper relief. But we’re never going to meet the unmet need by throwing more and more food box distributions at it. I mean, that’s not a long term solution. It’s not a sustainable solution. It’s an incredibly inefficient, undignified and expensive approach.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: That was federally funded. And she was saying a much better way to address this would be to have, say, an increase in SNAP benefits, so that people can go out and buy their own food, instead of having to drive and wait hours and hours to maybe get a box of food.

Anore Horton: This program is a travesty. USDA and our federal government and our federal administration chose to create a brand new, billions-of-dollars program that requires private food distribution companies to build boxes of food with specific items and then get those boxes into people’s hands through this complicated distribution system, that in Vermont involves us also paying the Vermont National Guard to do that. And then ask people who need food resources to go get in line in their cars and wait for four or five hours waiting to get food.

I mean, it’s insane. It’s an insane way to take care of one of people’s most basic human needs that we all have, when we could have just put that money into the SNAP program and expanded who can access benefits. And people could have gotten a card and gone to their local grocery store and picked out their items whenever it was convenient for them to do so.

I know there have also been these programs to distribute more meals through schools. What role does that play in this conversation?

Elizabeth Gribkoff: I think the school meal distribution plays a really important role. Because families with children are actually, and this is before the pandemic, are more likely to be food insecure. And of course for a lot of families — Meredith Niles from UVM was saying they found that people are already starting to cut back on how much they’re eating to ensure that their families are fed. So obviously if people can make sure that their kids at least have breakfast and lunch every day, that’s a huge, huge help.

There’s been free meals in schools programs before this, but they were only available to students whose families make at or below a certain income level. Whereas now there’s federal funding to have those available for any kids and teenagers 18 and under. So they don’t even have to be enrolled in a school, which advocates know, think is a good thing.

One area of concern is that, Anore Horton from Hunger Free Vermont was saying that there’s been areas where school districts that have busing, so they’re able to actually bus those meals out to families, are seeing a greater uptick in families getting those free meals, as opposed to districts where the parents or someone has to go and pick up the meals during the day.

Anore Horton: So that program has no funding in it, no extra money in it, for transportation. So that’s always been a limit on how many kids we can reach with summer meals in Vermont. Because in a lot of places in Vermont, in a normal summer, you either need to get the food to the kids or the kids to the food. But somehow you’ve got to transport one or the other, right? And there’s no money for that, right?

Those school buses stopped running at the end of the school year, in the places that even have buses. And then there’s no transportation funding. So that can’t happen this summer, or we’re going to have a really serious crisis of child and family hunger in our state. I mean, the fact that the school meal programs are operating right now and serving thousands and thousands and thousands of meals every day is why we’re not having daily long lines outside of our food shelves in our towns.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: So they’re hoping that, over the summer, they want to make sure that there’s continued funding from the state to keep busing meals to kids. She was saying, which I thought was fitting, you’ve got to either get the kids to the meals or the meals to the kids. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. Normally, before the pandemic, kids would be in school and they’d be getting the meals there. I think the transportation aspect of that, and the distribution, it’s a really important part to make that program as successful as it could be.

This week you went up to Burlington to see how the school meal distribution worked. What did you see?

Elizabeth Gribkoff: I got there at Burlington High School at 7 a.m. Had some flashbacks of arriving in high school, except there’s almost no one there, obviously, so it’s a little different. But yeah, I went in and met with Pat Teague, who’s the executive chef at the Burlington Food Project, which provides meals for kids at the 14 schools in Burlington.

Pat Teague: Here, you’re going to see tons of food just start to pile up on these carts…

Elizabeth Gribkoff: It was interesting to see how it was working. Because they’re not doing — I would sort of picture in the past, big, I don’t know, vats of chili, maybe heating up hamburgers or something like that going on at a school meals prep program. But this instead was, there was a lot of fresh food, they were cutting up cucumbers in one room. A lot of it in the morning, they take lunches and breakfast that have been bagged and put out the previous days, put them in boxes and then load them onto vans that go out in the morning for distribution at sites around Burlington.

Pat Teague: We make our own chicken salad, you’ve got a bun, Goldfish…

Elizabeth Gribkoff: After that, they go back and will be boxing up sandwiches and apples and all these lunches and breakfasts. That was something that Pat kept saying was, there’s just so many numbers and so much planning. Because now they’re doing everything like that, take out, and it has to be packaged in a certain way. And that’s very different than what they were doing beforehand.

Pat Teague: Wednesday would be say, 2000, Thursday another 500…

Elizabeth Gribkoff: One thing that’s been a big change is that now, I think there’s like 45 staff members that used to of course be spread out at schools around Burlington. And now they have shifts of 10 that will come in for two week intervals, and they’re way more spread out. They’re all now in one high school. It seems like they’ve got, at this point, got the system worked out pretty well, but I definitely think from what Pat kept saying, there’s lots of numbers in these huge spreadsheets and everything. It’s pretty intense.

It seems like there’s a really obvious need here. I’m wondering what we’ve heard so far from state government about what they’re doing to address it.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: Well, they’ve definitely been — the Agency of Education certainly has been coordinating the school meal efforts, which of course play a big role in this. But actually, advocates are saying that they think that the state needs to step up and do more to be addressing food security right now.

Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, actually recently came out with this over $50 million food security proposal from the state. So they just feel like this hasn’t been perhaps as front burner in the state’s crisis response as it should be.

At a press conference this week, VTDigger asked Governor Scott about this, and he certainly expressed concerns about long lines at places like that Berlin mass distribution, and said this is something they’re kind of looking into more, but didn’t really provide a lot of specifics.

Gov. Phil Scott: Yeah, this is a great concern to me. Obviously what we saw last week at one of the points where there were long lines at some of the food centers. I’ve asked [Human Services] Secretary Smith to take a look at the Meals on Wheels program to see how much new activity is there, as well as with the Vermont Foodbank, so that we can do an assessment of the need, as well as what we can do in the future to provide for those in need. And to encourage those who may be in need, but haven’t utilized the services to reach out to us so that we can help.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: The state does have this, it’s called a mass feeding program. It’s something that they’re submitting to FEMA, and a lot of it has to do with supporting or ramping up existing efforts, like supporting the Foodbank’s increased work and making sure the free school meals program continues. And sort of coordinating a little bit more of a statewide response to this.

So organizations like the Foodbank, which of course has drastically increased the amount of food it’s distributing, they’re saying, “we’re not really meant to be all of a sudden serving this much more food.” You know, “we don’t necessarily have the capacity or the means to be doing this long term. That’s not exactly our role.”

They see these food distribution events as kind of an emergency solution. What happens next? Like, as we look towards a potentially lengthy economic downturn, what do advocates see happening six months from now, a year from now?

Elizabeth Gribkoff: Well, something that really stuck with me was when I was talking with Meredith Niles from UVM, she was saying that food insecurity levels, not surprisingly, had gone up around 2008 during the great recession. But they stayed elevated for years after that, which kind of makes sense if you think about the long term economic recovery.

That’s something that I think I hadn’t maybe appreciated: the extent to which this could be going on for years. It’s maybe not just an acute problem. So kind of given that, Anore Horton from Hunger Free Vermont was saying that food is something — if families are on a really tight budget, and especially if they see a sudden significant decline in their budget from someone becoming unemployed — that’s something where people may start literally cutting back on what they’re eating, to ensure that they’re paying fixed costs like rent and other bills.

And so because of that, organizations like Hunger Free Vermont see really addressing hunger as addressing broader economic inequalities. They actually see things like raising the minimum wage and providing access to universal healthcare, which would ideally put more money in people’s pockets and reduce costs for things like healthcare, that would have a direct impact on then providing people with more money to be able to buy food.

Thanks Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Gribkoff: Thanks Mike.

Read the story on VTDigger here: The Deeper Dig: The hunger problem ahead.

VTDigger is posting regular updates on the coronavirus in Vermont on this page. You can also subscribe here for regular email updates on the coronavirus. If you have any questions, thoughts or updates on how Vermont is responding to COVID-19, contact us at coronavirus@vtdigger.org

As unemployment claims pour into the state and residents await their federal stimulus checks, Vermonters are tapping into another way to keep themselves afloat during the Covid-19 crisis: SNAP benefits, commonly known as food stamps.

The number of people applying for new or renewed 3SquaresVT benefits — the state’s branch of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — grew from a weekly average of 390 to more than 2,000 from March 30 to April 3, according to data from the Department for Children and Families, which administers the program.

While the number of new applications has since slowed, with only 698 applications last week, DCF is still noticing a big uptick in calls, said Sean Brown, the deputy commissioner of the department’s economic services division.

Vermont is not alone. While national data is not yet available, states like Georgia, California and Connecticut have reported a rise in SNAP applications. The increase comes as food banks are raising the alarm about increasing demand. 

“We’ve always understood that we are supporting the most vulnerable Vermonters,” Brown said.

But Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, said she believed the number of people applying was “very good news.”

“It means that people suddenly thrown into economic hardship knew it was available as an option,” she said.

She said it concerns her more that many of the people applying to the program may not be eligible because of federal limits on who qualifies by income and other factors. 

“There are a lot of people in Vermont right now who are not able to make ends meet, and we want everyone who’s had a change in income to apply for 3Squares and every other benefit available,” she said.

The state has taken new measures to loosen eligibility requirements for 3SquaresVT. They have suspended work requirements and waived in-person interviews. DCF is also allowing a delay for people to show that they have applied for unemployment benefits, since the claims system has reported issues, Brown said.

The federal government has also raised some benefits for people on SNAP benefits. Households will soon get their “full allotment,” meaning the most that the federal government would provide someone of their household size, Brown said.

“So if you’re a one-person household receiving $100 in benefits per month, you can go up to the maximum allowed amount of $194 per month,” Brown said.

Horton said even before the crisis, the benefits level was too low for many families to survive on. Hunger Free Vermont runs a “3SquaresVT Challenge” each year to ask Vermonters to try to live off of the benefit provided by the federal government — about $36 a week for a single person as of November 2019.

The federal government has not changed rules about where recipients can use their SNAP benefits card, called an EBT card. Since people with the card have to physically swipe it at a cash register or terminal, they typically can’t use the cards for online orders — like the grocery delivery apps that many people are using to minimize their contact with others during the Covid-19 crisis.

To try to enable 3SquaresVT recipients to use remote grocery shopping options, DCF is leasing retailers mobile “point-of-sale” terminals starting this week that they can bring to someone’s home during a delivery, Brown said.

Vermont is also one of the few states that has a “cash out” program in place for older Vermonters and those with disabilities to receive their benefits via direct deposit, Brown said. This gives qualified beneficiaries the ability to pay for deliveries or curbside pickups online or through an app.

Horton praised the work of DCF, saying the department had taken advantage of “every possible waiver and provision” available through new federal rules.

State officials are also trying to implement an extension of SNAP payments for families with children on their school’s free and reduced lunch program. DCF is working with the Agency of Education to identify households that had qualified for free and reduced lunch but were not yet on SNAP, so those families can get paid for providing their kids’ extra food.

“We think there are about 14,000 households that are eligible to receive that benefit,” Brown said. DCF hopes to issue those payments in May.

The turnaround time for some to receive benefits has not changed, DCF said. The agency took strict measures at the start of the crisis to make sure they could keep up with demand, including extending their hours and authorizing more overtime for their call center employees.

“We saw ski areas closing early on for Covid and were starting to see an uptick in calls,” Brown said. “So we started implementing those changes early.”

Most applications still start online, but people can walk into a district office and answer questions through the phone in the lobby or through a window, he said.

Despite the rise in applications, the new applications have so far been a small percentage of the 38,500 total people in the state on SNAP benefits, a decline from a post-recession high of 52,000 in 2013, Brown said.

But if the crisis continues far into 2020, the state’s caseload will start to catch up, Brown said. 

“There’s always a little delay in our caseload,” he said. “So we’re asking, what will the economy look like three months or six months out?”

Horton said the fact that it is now “easier than ever” to apply is an advantage for the Vermont economy. 

“It brings federal dollars into the state for our stores, who really need it right now,” she said.

Vermonters can apply for 3SquaresVT through the DCF website. Hunger Free Vermont also maintains a list of ways to access food during the Covid-19 crisis on its website.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Food benefits applications skyrocket amid Covid-19 crisis.

In this stressful time, we all need enough food at home to keep ourselves and our loved ones healthy. Hunger Free Vermont wants you to know that there are a number of food resources available to help you and your neighbors — we’re all in this together as part of a caring, responsive Vermont community.

If your household has reduced income, you may now be eligible for nutrition programs that help out in unexpected situations. If you’ve never used these food resources before, please know they are here for everyone. 

Please visit www.hungerfreevt.org/news/coronavirus for information about how you can apply for 3SquaresVT, school meals, WIC, and prepared meals for older Vermonters.  All of these programs not only provide access to healthy food and free up other household income, but they bring much-needed federal dollars into Vermont to support our local farmers, grocery stores, and food distributors. 

Hunger Free Vermont is committed to nourishing community connections in the midst of this health crisis, and we are standing for a future of universal nutrition programs that support us all.

Here are nutrition programs you and your family may now be eligible for:

School Meals: Most districts will still be providing meals to students during this closure. If your family’s financial situation changes you can apply or re-apply for free school meals at any time during the school year, even if you have not qualified in the past!  Contact your school for an application.

WIC:  WIC gives you access to healthy foods, nutrition education and counseling, and breastfeeding support. If you’re pregnant, a caregiver, or a parent with a child under five, WIC is right for you!  To find out more and apply visit www.healthvermont.gov/family/wic or text ‘VTWIC’ to 855-11.

3SquaresVT: Has your household lost pay? Have your childcare expenses increased? 3SquaresVT is here for you and your family to help put food on the table!  You could be eligible to receive a 3SquareVT benefit or increase the benefit you already receive. To get help applying visit www.vtfoodbank.org/nurture-people/3squaresvt, call 855-855-6181 or text VFBSNAP to 85511. Or call 2-1-1.  You can also visit dcf.vermont.gov/benefits/3SquaresVT.

Meal Programs for Older Vermonters: People age 60 and older are especially encouraged to stay at home in order to protect themselves from Covid-19, but staying well nourished is also critical for your health.  For more information about meals for older adults that can be either delivered or picked up, please call the Helpline at 1-800-642-5119.

Food assistance through the Vermont Foodbank network:  The Vermont Foodbank is dedicated to supporting Vermonters during all times of need.  To find a food shelf near you, call 1-800-585-2265 or visit www.vtfoodbank.org/agency-locator.Hunger Free Vermont will be updating our website regularly with new information to connect Vermonters to food resources. Visit www.hungerfreevt.org/news/coronavirus

Read the story on VTDigger here: Anore Horton: Feeding your family during the COVID-19 outbreak.

VTDigger is posting regular updates on the coronavirus in Vermont on this page. You can also subscribe here for regular email updates on the coronavirus. If you have any questions, thoughts or updates on how Vermont is responding to COVID-19, contact us at coronavirus@vtdigger.org

Thousands of children in Vermont rely on public K-12 schools for regular access to food. And in his directive last week ordering districts to close down, Gov. Phil Scott tasked education officials with making sure children kept getting fed, even as schools shut their doors.

With just days to plan, districts have sprung into action, retooling their food service programs to deliver hundreds of meals a day using school buses or take-out options. Every school district in Vermont is providing meals to students “in some form or fashion,” said Anore Horton, the executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, which is tracking each district’s remote meal plan in a publicly accessible spreadsheet.

“Our hats go off to all of the amazing folks out there who are making that happen,” she said.

Most districts are either providing bagged breakfasts and lunches at grab-and-go sites, dropping food off along regular routes using school buses, or both. A handful are also doing home delivery.

In Burlington, home to the state’s largest school district, superintendent Yaw Obeng said in a livestreamed press conference Monday that staff had served more than 3,000 meals in the first week of remote service. Meals can be picked up at any one of 11 sites across the city, no questions asked, for anyone 18 and under. Parents can pick up meals without their children present.

The rollout hasn’t been without hiccups. In a live-chat accompanying Obeng’s press conference, one mother complained that the meal site she visited that morning hadn’t had enough food when she had come by.

Russell Elek, a spokesperson for the Burlington schools, said Monday that two sites had run out of food so far. The district is standing up a system to make sure meal sites that are running low can call food services for additional meals.

“We’re trying to put systems in place to ensure that doesn’t happen,” he said.

In St. Johnsbury, Superintendent Brian Ricca said the district had distributed about 700 meals in the first three days of service. The district’s buses and school vans are doing daily runs to drop off food along two routes. 

But Ricca also stressed that the school district had already adjusted its delivery plans several times in response to feedback, and would be happy to do so again.

“The message we really want our community to take away from this is: We will do almost anything we can to make sure that we are putting food in your hands,” he said. “So please reach out to us if our route isn’t working and we’re going to adjust.”

In the Harwood Unified School District, staff are preparing food in the Harwood high school cafeteria and shipping off bagged breakfasts and lunches to pick-up sites outside each of the district’s seven schools, three times a week. The meals are available to anyone under 18. In the first three days of service, the district served well over 1,700 meals, according to superintendent Brigid Nease.

In the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union, superintendent Jeanné Collins said more than 1,000 meals are being delivered daily using buses. Each bag contains a breakfast and lunch, and Friday deliveries will include multiple meals intended to cover the weekend. The service is available to any families with children 18 and under upon request. The buses are also delivering learning packets and Chromebooks.

“In two weeks, if still distance learning, we will take weekly assignments and pick up homework,” she said.

A majority of schools will use the federal government’s summer meals program to access reimbursements for their new food service plans. But the program won’t reimburse schools for all meals delivered unless the district has a certain number of children enrolled in its free-and-reduced lunch program.

Hunger Free Vermont is advocating with Vermont’s congressional delegation that the federal stimulus package being debated in Washington requires the USDA to waive such requirements.

In the meantime, families that have recently lost income are urged to apply to participate in their school’s free-and-reduced lunch program, Horton said. That could help schools hit the eligibility threshold needed to access universal reimbursements, and avoid a financial fallout when the pandemic ends.

The advocacy group has also compiled a resource guide to help families who need benefits access them.

Read the story on VTDigger here: How Vermont school districts are providing hundreds of meals a day.

Barre is ringed by grocery stores: Shaw’s and Price Chopper to the north, Hannaford to the south and Quality Market up the hill heading outside of town.

But the heart of downtown has lacked a grocery store since a former Grand Union closed after a corporate sale more than a decade ago. That leaves no grocery store in walking distance —  downtown residents without cars must take a bus to get to one, Mayor Lucas Herring said in an interview this month.

Another option has filled the gap, with mixed reception: dollar stores. Two Dollar Generals — one at the northwest end of the city and another store at the southern end — are closer to the city center than the closest grocery stores, and they sell cheap staples like canned goods, frozen microwave-ready meals, household goods and plenty of snacks.

For low-income families, the arrival of chain dollar stores can make food shopping more accessible and affordable. But the stores’ offerings don’t fully meet the needs of consumers, and low prices can put pressure on competitors with more diverse and fresh products.

Barre is not the only town that has experienced a dollar store boom.

Vermont had at least 60 dollar stores in 2018, nearly double the number of stores six years before, according to USDA data. That’s similar to national trends: The number of dollar stores nationally grew from fewer than 20,000 in 2011 to 29,000 in 2018.

The number of convenience stores that accept food stamps has also increased, rising from 200 in 2008 to 346 a decade later, according to USDA data on retailers that accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, known in Vermont as 3SquaresVT.

Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores have come to a state where many low-income residents are struggling to find food. The Vermont Department of Health estimates that 30% of low-income towns are more than 15 minutes from a grocery store, and USDA data shows a lack of food options for far-flung rural Vermonters and urban Vermonters without transportation.

If there’s no population to support a store, there will be no grocery store, said Jane Kolodinsky, an economist and food researcher at the University of Vermont. But when the grocery store leaves, there are fewer amenities to support that rural population. 

“It’s a further cause of the decline of rural America,” she said.

Extra time to make a grocery store run can be a burden, particularly for low-income Vermonters, said John Sayles, CEO of the Vermont Foodbank.

“It can be really challenging to get to a full-service grocery store, and when you do it’s much more expensive,” he said. “If you’re a single mother with kids, you have a limited food budget, and you are spending a portion of that budget on fresh food your kids might not even eat, and you have to prep? It’s a full-time job being poor.”

Sayles has a mixed opinion of dollar stores. They have food available at prices often lower than other places, and in urban areas they’re accessible to people without cars. And careful shoppers could get nutritious meals out of the canned goods and frozen staples sold in dollar stores.

Yet a full grocery store would provide far better options, he said. (Vermont Foodbank received $100,000 in a settlement between Dollar General and the Attorney General over deceptive pricing.)

Kolodinsky said dollar stores tend to have more processed food laden with calories and saturated fat. While the arrival of dollar stores in areas without grocery stores gives people local food shopping options, it doesn’t necessarily address the issue of access to affordable, healthy options.

“I worry there will be a proliferation of places where you can get food, and the conversation [on food deserts] goes away,” she said. “But that shuts off the conversation of what kind of food people have access to.”

Searching for veggies in the Granite City

Barre was a thriving industrial town at the turn of the 20th century, but the decline of its granite industry has led to economic struggles. More than a quarter of residents in Barre City are below the poverty line, double the Vermont average. Little data exists on car ownership, but about 27% of residents don’t drive themselves to work, higher than the rest of Vermont.

Residents of downtown Barre tend to be poorer than those in the surrounding hills of Barre Town, said Nick Landry, president of Granite City Grocery.

Landry is familiar with the grocery store divide in Barre. A longtime resident, he has been working to get a cooperative grocery store off the ground in the city since 2013. His father, Bruce, recalls the old Grand Union, now the home of Lenny’s Shoe & Apparel. “That store was profitable, but the company wasn’t,” Bruce said.

Locals have some sporadic food options, like a seasonal farmers market and the Capstone food bank and community group. There are convenience stores as well, but one owner said he’d been struggling to compete since Dollar General opened up down the road. 

“We can’t buy items wholesale as cheap as they can, and we can’t compete pricewise. They have so much buying power. They even sell tobacco and alcohol,” said Rick Dente, owner of Dente’s Market. 

Dente’s, on the main road, Route 302, just north of downtown, sells snacks, basic foods and alcohol along with some fresh fruits and deli meats. The end of Burlington News Agency’s magazine distribution has hit it hard as well, and the magazine rack sits nearly empty with just a few hobby magazines. Dente said he plans to close the store next year and try to re-open it with a new focus.

Other nearby stores have pivoted their business to gain an edge. Quality Market, a locally owned grocery store up the road from Barre, started offering fully cooked meals and a bigger produce aisle to draw in daily customers. 

“We have found our niche is really our new entrees and our meat department. There aren’t very many places where you can get custom cut-to-order steak,” said Pam Trag, owner of Quality Market. 

Nick Landry hopes to target a still-unfilled market — residents who want produce and affordable groceries within walking distance. 

“People downtown are keenly aware Barre’s a food desert,” he said. “People with cars just come from Shaw’s and bounce to Hannaford.”

Right now, Granite City Grocery, still in early planning stages, is working on getting new members. Seven hundred households have signed up to join the cooperative. Landry envisions the store combining low-cost staples with more expensive specialty produce, hoping that income from the latter will help keep the former affordable.

Hunger Free Vermont is also working with local officials to map food access in Barre. Monica Taylor, Hunger Free’s representative on the project, said other “hunger councils” across the state are keeping an eye on it as a model to clarify a complex issue. 

One area of the state has been more successful in getting grocery stores into its downtown — Burlington. After a major grocery store closure, the city commissioned a study that led it to award City Market the chance to replace its old store in 1999. 

But there’s still a divide, Kolodinsky said. “If you look at where the major grocery stores are, they’re not downtown. They’re on the outskirts.”

It’s all about access and cost, Sayles said. “There’s plenty of food available. The reason we have hunger in Vermont is people don’t have money to buy food, or they don’t have money to pay for transportation to buy the food.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Dollar stores are filling Vermont’s food deserts. Are they helping?.

As Vermonters turn on their furnaces and prepare for Thanksgiving, the Trump administration is once again taking aim at some of our most vulnerable neighbors. The White House and USDA recently announced their third attempt in the past 12 months to go around Congress and take food away from millions of working families, people with disabilities, and older Americans in need.  A new proposed rule change would cut SNAP (known in Vermont as 3SquaresVT) benefits by $4.5 billion over five years, including a yearly cut of over $25 million in Vermont.

If enacted, this proposal would be devastating for thousands of Vermonters who rely on 3SquaresVT to put enough food on the table to stay healthy. According to estimates from Vermont’s Department for Children and Families, if this proposal goes into effect, over 26,000 Vermont households (or 68% of recipients) would see an average cut of $82 in their monthly food benefits. The proposal would disproportionately impact people with disabilities and older adults — populations for whom proper nutrition is especially essential to health and wellness – impacting roughly 80% of these 3SquaresVT households.

Hunger Free Vermont, the Vermont Foodbank, and Capstone Community Action call on Vermonters to stand with us to oppose this latest attack by writing and sending comments to USDA by Dec. 2.

We are joining together to ask for your help because we know from daily experience what these cuts would mean for our state. Capstone Community Action hosts Central Vermont’s largest food shelf, where over 5,000 Vermonters are assisted annually with fresh produce and ready-to-eat meals. 3SquaresVT benefits are already too low to buy enough healthy food, a key reason why the need for supplemental food assistance is growing. A reduction of $82 per month represents the loss of a week’s worth of food, and will force thousands of Vermont households into impossible decisions about whether to feed themselves and their families or cover other critical needs such as heat, rent, and medical care. Already 1 in 7 children, and 1 in 10 Vermonters overall, are living with hunger. We cannot allow this shameful situation to worsen.

Private charity simply cannot compensate for the breadth of the impact of these proposed cuts. Last year, the Vermont Foodbank provided 11.7 million pounds of food to people throughout Vermont. And yet, the charitable food system in Vermont and throughout the U.S. cannot even begin to make up the difference for families who would lose their food budget through these harsh cuts to 3SquaresVT. The Vermont Foodbank is part of Feeding America’s national network of 200 food banks. For each meal that this network provides to people in need, SNAP provides nine.

As Thanksgiving approaches we should give thanks for 3SquaresVT.  For over 40 years, SNAP/3SquaresVT has been our nation’s first line of defense against hunger. This program works: it provides, on average, over 70,000 Vermonters and 40 million Americans with money to spend on food in grocery stores and farmers markets each month. It is proven to reduce hunger, help lift people out of poverty, and deliver positive short- and long-term health, education, and employment outcomes. It helps us all by bringing over $100 million into our economy each year.

There is still time to fight this proposal, but we need your help. Writing and sending a comment to USDA by Dec. 2 is the most effective action you can take to keep people from losing their money for food, and the more comments we submit, the stronger we are together. Please visit www.hungerfreevt.org/protect3squaresvt to write and send a public comment opposing this cut to 3SquaresVT, and then ask everyone you know to do the same before Dec. 2.

With 40% of Vermonters unable to handle an unplanned $1,000 expense, any of us may need to turn to 3SquaresVT for help accessing food.  Make writing your comment an act of thanks for collective programs like 3SquaresVT that are there for all of us when we need them. Now more than ever, we must all make our voices heard to protect the nutrition program that keeps thousands of Vermonters and millions of Americans from going hungry.

If you feel unable to meet your food needs, 3SquaresVT is a great resource that we can all defend and strengthen! To learn if you’re eligible, text VFBSNAP to 85511 or call 1-855-855-6181.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Horton, Minter & Sayles: Defend access to 3SquaresVT.

A rule proposed by the Trump administration that would change how immigrants’ use of public benefits are factored into green card applications has been halted. The change was to go into effect this week.

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday in a suit filed by Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan and three other prosecutors. Vermont challenged the change to the “public charge” rule with New York state, Connecticut and New York City. Judges in two other cases also issued injunctions temporarily blocking the rule.

The Trump administration wants to broaden the types of benefits that could be considered when immigration officers weigh whether a green card applicant would be financially independent.

The change would result in the denial of permanent residency status for many more immigrants.

Under previous policy, only cash benefit programs could be considered. The Trump administration sought to expand the definition to include federal food, housing and health care programs. 

The rule was set to go into effect Oct. 15. 

Only a small number of immigrants are believed to be impacted by the proposed rule change in Vermont, but it has led to confusion. The lawsuit argued that in Vermont, refugees, though exempt from the rule changes, may believe that they could jeopardize their immigration status or a family member’s if they accept benefits.

“Fear and confusion surrounding the Final Rule will likely result in refugees, as well as their non-refugee family members, disenrolling in critical benefits that help them successfully integrate,” the lawsuit states.

Sara Brooks, an Americorps food coordinator at Spectrum Youth and Family Services in Burlington, said people at the drop-in center have asked whether accepting food assistance through 3Squares Vermont, the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), could impact someone’s immigration status.

“People really don’t understand it,” Brooks said Monday. “They’re like, should get off of Medicaid if I want to become a citizen at one point?”

One of the biggest issues is the lack of information about the Trump rule and the impact it could have on the immigration status of local residents, Brooks said. 

“If we’re talking about people who can’t figure out if they can [be on] food stamps or not, those are not people who can afford a $200 session with a lawyer,” Brooks said.

Opponents of the rule say it has caused a “chilling effect” in immigrants’ access to health and nutrition programs across the country. An estimated 25,000 non-citizen New York City residents dropped out of SNAP related to the rule change, officials say.

Multiple Vermont organizations contacted by VTDigger had not seen a decline in participation among immigrants in benefits programs, but they did say it has prompted confusion.

Georgia Maheras, of the Bi-State Primary Care Association, said she has heard that the federally qualified health care centers the organization represents in both Vermont and New Hampshire have gotten questions from clients confused about whether using health services will impact their immigration status.

“Individuals are not sure what they can do, what they should do, what they’re able to do — and a real worry is that they will make a choice that is disadvantageous to them or a family member,” Maheras said.

While Maheras was not aware of a decline in non-citizens’ use of health services, she noted it is a difficult population to measure.

Nissa James of the Department of Vermont Health Access said the department did not have an estimate for the number of non-citizens enrolled in Medicaid who could be affected by the rule change. Though the rule, if it does eventually go into effect, would allow Medicaid to be considered in a green card application, there are exemptions — like pregnant women, children, and refugees, as DVHA outlined in a fact sheet. Current permanent residents would also be exempt, unless they leave the country for an extended period.

Anore Horton, of Hunger Free Vermont, said before the injunction last week that the organization was hopeful that court challenges to the new rule would be successful. Hunger Free Vermont had been cautious about publicizing the rule change, because of the risk of raising concerns.

“What the rule is designed to do is scare people into dropping all their benefit programs,” Horton said last week.

Vermont’s Department for Children and Families, which oversees the state’s SNAP program, does not track detailed immigration status, so doesn’t have a clear picture of how many people would be impacted by the rule. Spokesperson Luciana DiRuocco noted it would be a “small population,” because refugees are exempt from the change. She said the department has not gotten many inquiries about the change.

In a statement after the court rulings Friday, the White House said the injunction was “extremely disappointing.”

“The rulings today prevent our Nation’s immigration officers from ensuring that immigrants seeking entry to the United States will be self-sufficient and instead allow non-citizens to continue taking advantage of our generous but limited public resources reserved for vulnerable Americans,” the White House said in a statement.

Donovan, in a statement, celebrated the blockage of the rule.

“Vermont will not allow people to be penalized for needing a helping hand when they come to this country,” Donovan said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge blocks Trump restrictions on immigrant benefits.

Attorney General TJ Donovan called on Vermonters Wednesday to tell the federal government that they disagree with its plan to remove 3 million Americans from being eligible for food stamps.

The Trump administration says the rule change will stop people from taking advantage of loopholes. Donovan, however, says the effort will result in food being taken away from people who badly need it.

Donovan and other state officials are asking Vermonters to go to www.hungerfreevt.org/protect3squaresvt to submit comments to the federal government before the legally mandated public comment period ends on Sept. 23.

He said the rule change will take away $7.5 million in food benefits that Vermonters rely on, and that the public comment period is the first way that people should be letting the Trump administration know they disagree.

“In Vermont, we have success in defeating a proposed rule,” Donovan said. “We can do this.”

In 2018, more than 3,000 Vermonters submitted comments, largely in opposition to a rule change that would have required Vermont maple syrup to be packaged with an “added sugar” label. After reviewing the comments, the FDA nixed the proposed change.

John Sayles, CEO of the Vermont Foodbank, said most of the potentially affected people are unaware of the changes and won’t until it goes into effect, leaving them unable to put food on their table or have their kids get free lunch at school.

“These people are working so hard to make every moment count in their day, they’re not paying attention to this news conference, and they’re not paying attention to what’s happening in Washington,” Sayles said. “They’re going to get that letter and be knocked back.”

He said the state has 215 food sites that are already overwhelmed by need. He said the move by the Trump administration would be akin to taking food from the hungry, calling it “gratuitous cruelty.”

“The charitable sector — Vermonters who are donating their hard earned money to organizations like the food bank and Hunger Free Vermont, making a big difference — cannot make up the difference,” he said.

Sen. Debbie Ingram, D-Chittenden, said she’s aware of people who would lose benefits, and who are not taking advantage of the system. She gave examples of a 27-year-old single mom with an infant daughter making $27,000 a year, a 62-year-old and her 59-year-old partner making $19,000 a year with just $5,000 in savings, and a 71-year-old making $30,000 a year who has custody of her 10-year-old grandson — all of whom would lose their benefits under the proposal.

“Are these the people the federal government says are exploiting loopholes in the current system?” Ingram asked. “I don’t think so. I think this is cruel and unusual punishment for those living in poverty.”

Anore Horton, the executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, said her agency can say with absolute certainty that the degree of fraud in the SNAP program is miniscule, noting that it has the lowest fraud rating of any federal program.

Sayles added his agency is more worried innocent people might have their benefits cut than that a few might be gaming the system.

“We should really be thinking about ‘what’s the impact of all the people that still need it that aren’t eligible into these programs,’” Sayles said. 

Donovan said if necessary, litigation against the federal government could be considered, though for now, he said, it’s still too early. Instead, he encouraged people to make use of the comment period while they still can.

“This one is about our kids,” Donovan said. “Let’s speak up.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Donovan calls for action to oppose Trump food stamp changes.

[V]ermont’s Department for Children and Families is opposing the Trump administration’s proposal to restrict eligibility for food stamps, saying the changes could cut off benefits worth $7.5 million to about 5,200 households in the state.

“We believe that the families that would be impacted really need this benefit,” DCF Commissioner Ken Schatz said Wednesday.

Planned rule changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as 3SquaresVT in Vermont, would also affect schools. Children whose families participate in the program are automatically eligible for free and reduced meals at school, and the changes could potentially impact over 4,600 Vermont children.

Nationally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a little over 3 million people would lose food assistance if the changes go into effect.

Trump administration officials have argued they are simply fixing a “loophole” to ensure the program only helps those who properly qualify. But critics, including Vermont officials, say the changes will hurt the poor and counterproductively incentivize low-income people not to save money.

“The American people expect their government to be fair, efficient, and to have integrity,” USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement. “That is why we are changing the rules, preventing abuse of a critical safety net system, so those who need food assistance the most are the only ones who receive it.”

Existing rules allow states to waive some eligibility criteria in certain situations. Schatz says that’s not a loophole – it’s flexibility that allows states to build programs with a local context in mind.

“When we look at the cost of living in Vermont – it’s relatively high,” Schatz said.

To qualify for food stamps, a family’s income must fall below a certain amount. And certain households cannot have assets – like savings – that exceed $3,500 or $2,500, depending on the family’s composition. But many states, including Vermont, waive the requirement that a family’s assets fall below those caps.

Nicole Tousignant, the senior policy and operations director at DCF, said the caps on assets set by the federal government are out of step with many people’s expenses.

“Those levels are extremely low. They wouldn’t even allow you, if you owned a home, to have enough to pay your property taxes, potentially,” she said.

Under one of the proposed changes, for example, a family of two in which at least one member is disabled with a net annual income of $16,910 will no longer qualify for benefits if it has savings worth over $3,500.

“It requires people to become financially destitute before they reach out for help,” said Faye Mack, the advocacy and education director at Hunger Free Vermont.

Hunger Free Vermont is leading a public campaign to push back on the changes. The nonprofit encourages Vermonters to submit feedback to the USDA on the rules by Sept. 23.

The changes could also have a profound trickle-down effects on schools.

“If the number of families who qualifies for SNAP benefits decreases, that could impact the number of schools who are able to provide free meals to all students,” said Agency of Education spokesperson Kate Connizzo.

Children whose families no longer qualify for 3SquaresVT will lose automatic enrollment in the free and reduced lunch program offered by schools. While those students might still qualify, they will have to submit a separate application, and school officials often complain that paperwork gets in the way of low-income families accessing beneficial programs.

Meanwhile, eligibility for a slew of federal grants and programs often depend on how many children in a school qualify for free and reduced lunch. If the number of children in any given school who are eligible dip below a certain rate, that school might suddenly find itself ineligible for such programs as fresh fruit and vegetable grants or discounted internet access. Teachers who work at those schools could also lose access to loan forgiveness programs.

When 40% or more of the students at a school or group of schools are directly certified for free meals, then the school can also provide universal free meals.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Food stamp cuts would impact thousands in Vt..