More can be done for hungry children of Santa Fe

Editor’s note: This is the latest in an occasional series on hunger in New Mexico.

At nearly 28 percent, New Mexico has the highest rate of children living in poverty in the United States. More than 69 percent of New Mexico public school students receive subsidized breakfasts and lunches. But even so, in Santa Fe, 25 percent of children are persistently hungry. In this city of wealth and generosity, we need to acknowledge that we can do better.

During the recent session, state legislators agreed to appropriate funds to pay for 12,500 additional students to receive free breakfast and lunch at school. But even as we celebrate that success, qualifying for free breakfast and lunch is a process that does not reach every hungry child. Even more alarming, proposed changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — better known as food stamps — are threatening to make it even harder for schools to qualify for federal funds to offset the cost of the school meal programs.

Initiatives in Vermont and Atlanta lead the way for establishing free meals for every child in a public school. When Vermont research showed that 1 in 4 students eligible for free school meals weren’t participating in the program, the legislature introduced a mandate to expand free breakfast and lunch to all students. The legislative intention is to bring “consistency, equity and transparency” to the school meal programs. A similar initiative in the Atlanta public school district offers free breakfast and lunch to all children without eligibility restrictions.

Without breakfast and lunch at school, summer can be a time of significant struggle for families that are unable to make ends meet. Located in Santa Fe, The Food Depot, the food bank that gathers and distributes food to community agencies, supports several outreach programs specifically for school-age children and their families, including nonschool-age siblings and parents.

Food 4 Kids, a joint venture project between Kids Kitchen and The Food Depot, reaches children at summer camps and in their home communities, providing breakfast and a prepared meal at lunchtime. The Food Depot’s Lunch Box Express program targets specific neighborhoods in which schools have high rates of food insecurity and focuses on areas that do not have easy access to food during the summer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture supports summer food service programs at roughly 50,000 sites nationwide. A growing number of public libraries are among those sites that fill the gap by serving summer meals five days a week to school-age children. Model statewide programs operate in California, New York, Ohio and Virginia to offer regular free meals during the summer months.

Two years ago, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum staff was moved to action when they realized how many hungry children might be among the more than 1,200 visitors on school tours each year. The museum made a food-based commitment to its largest program, Art & Leadership. They partner with The Food Depot to offer free breakfast, lunch and healthy snacks to all students in this summer program for middle-school children.

Despite our best community efforts, 25 percent of Santa Fe’s children remain persistently hungry. The uncoordinated patchwork of programs available in Santa Fe do not reach all of the families in need of support. Model projects from around the country offer a road map for coordinating future efforts to address the problem here in Santa Fe. Now that you know about child hunger, what will you do?

Carolyn Kastner is a member of the Public Policy and Advocacy Committee of The Food Depot, Northern New Mexico’s Food Bank. She joined the committee after retiring from the Georgia O’Kee≠e Museum.