Tens of thousands of Maine school children are not getting the food they need to thrive and grow. This is despite several federally-funded programs, and local efforts, aimed at keeping them fed and healthy. A new state task force has started working to figure out how to maximize existing programs and develop a plan to fill any gaps.
With the school lunch program, the school breakfast program, the summer food service program and various other efforts to address childhood hunger, you might think the estimated 200,000 school-age children in Maine are getting the food they need.
But studies show many are hungry when they show up at school, and that when they are not in school, the hunger problem is worse. Senate President Justin Alfond, a Democrat from Portland, is co-chairing the task force.
"What this task force is really after is figuring out how we access more of the food and dollars for Maine students," Alfond says. "We have a lot of programs; a lot of programs are not meeting their full potential."
Alfond says, under current federal guidelines, many more children could get free or reduced-cost meals. He says about half of those that meet guidelines are not making use of existing programs. That translates to about $30 million a year in federal funds that are going unused.
Democratic Rep. Victoria Kornfield, of Bangor, says a major goal of the task force is to identify the best ways to keep children in food programs when school is not in session.
"The 80 percent that’s fed during the school year are not coming to those sites during the summer," Kornfield says, "and it’s not that they are being fed somewhere else. So where are they? How do we get them to the site?"
Another problem facing the task force to end student hunger is getting statistics that are meaningful. Republican Rep. Russell Black, of Wilton, is frustrated with statistics that are based on the number of meals that are served at a school for lunch, versus breakfast or after school. He wants a clear focus for the task force.
"I’m here because I want to eliminate hungry kids," Black says. "And I am not interested in raising the bar to 76 percent of lunches fed if they don’t need to be fed. That’s where I am at. I want to take care of the hungry kids and make sure they can function in school."
Rep. Kornfield says while the goal to end hunger is clear, the confusion over statistics is an indication of how much work needs to be done.
"It’s a complex problem and I think it’s because it is both state, federal and local," she says, "and it’s just hard to get all of those entities talking together."
She says in many areas of the state it is local private groups that are helping to feed students. That makes it harder to identify where gaps exist in the state and how best to fill them.
Alfond says there are other issues, like transportation, that need to be addressed. Some after school programs are not located at schools. So, in the summer, a student may have to travel long distances to take advantage of meal programs.
And he says the stigma of poverty affects older students. "Students, especially as they get into the high school years, don’t want to sign up because they do not want their peers to know that they are a free- and reduced-(lunch) student," Alfond says. "So we are looking at techniques and best practices to overcome them."
The task force plans to meet over the summer months with at least one hearing outside of the capitol. The goal is to develop a plan that would be implemented over three to five years to end student hunger in Maine.
