Jamie Baxley
Madhu Vrimili, deputy director of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services' Division of Child and Family Services, said summer is often the “hungeriest time of the year” for food-insecure families.
She said it could be an especially tough season for low-income families who rely on the National School Lunch Program, which provides free or reduced-price meals to more than 900,000 North Carolina students. Lunches stop when public schools are out for the summer, putting many children at risk of malnutrition during the long break.
“One in four children experience food insecurity or chronic hunger, and the situation is made worse during the summer as many of the meals students receive during the school year are gone,” Vrimili said. “Summer should be a joyful time for children, but for many families, it has become a more difficult time.”
A new USDA food assistance program, SUN Bucks, aims to ease some of those burdens by providing eligible families with school-age children a one-time payment of $120 per child to cover the cost of groceries while school is out.
Who is eligible for SUN Bucks?
Parents with children attending schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program are eligible for SUN Bucks if they or their children receive any of the following:
- Free or reduced-price school meals.
- EBT benefits are provided through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
- Medicaid health insurance.
- Cash assistance from the state's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
Children and teens in foster care who attend schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program may also be eligible, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
Many families who meet the criteria above will automatically be eligible to receive benefits, but some will need to apply. For more information, visit ncdhhs.gov/sunbucks or call the state's SUN Bucks hotline at 1-866-719-0141.
SUN Bucks, also known as the Summer Electronic Benefits Program, was established by Congress as part of the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022. North Carolina is one of 36 states and one of only nine in the South that have chosen to participate in the program, which became available for the first time this summer.
“We're really proud to be one of the states that will be participating in this program,” Vrimili said, “and we think this program is going to be really important in helping families through the summer, helping them put food on the table and helping to alleviate some of the food gaps that they may have relied on when their kids were in school.”
NC DHHS began mailing benefit cards to families who automatically qualify for SUN Bucks because they are enrolled in other assistance programs starting June 14. The department expects to distribute $120 million in benefits to about 1 million children by the end of September.
The funds are subject to the same restrictions as SNAP benefits: They can be used for most groceries, non-alcoholic beverages, and seeds to produce food, but not for pre-cooked meals or foods that are already hot.
“This is money that will go directly to families who need it, and that money will be spent in our state's economy and in local retailers this summer,” Vrimili said. “It's a win-win in some sense for our economy, for our families and for the entire state.”
Hunger
SUN Bucks was launched at a time when many North Carolinians are struggling with increased food insecurity.
“We are in the midst of a worsening hunger crisis,” said Jason Canawati Stephany, vice president of communications and public policy for the Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina. “Here in North Carolina and across the nation, food insecurity has reached its highest level in at least 15 years. It's the highest it's been since the Great Recession.”
In the food bank's 34-county service area, more than 173,000 children and youth experienced food insecurity in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. That's a 21% increase from 2021, when about 143,000 youth didn't know where their next meal was coming from.
Across North Carolina, more than 488,000 young people are living with food insecurity in 2022, up from 353,450 the year before, according to an analysis by the nonprofit organization Feeding America. More recently, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics found that food costs rose about 2 percent over the past 12 months.
Stephanie said state hunger data shows racial disparities, with Black and Latino families “hit twice as hard” as white families.
“In North Carolina, black and Latino households are nearly twice as likely to be food insecure as white households,” he said, “and this is a pattern seen in many parts of the country.”
Summer hunger can have “long-term consequences,” according to aid group Feed the Children: students who skip meals while out of school can develop “physical and mental health problems,” leading to “poor academic performance” when they return to class.
Stephanie herself grew up in a food-insecure household, so she knows that summer can be “one of the most difficult times of the year to put food on the table.”
“June is a time when children can easily miss out on breakfast, lunch and often snacks at school,” he said, “and many parents and guardians are having to pack at least 10 extra meals per week for each child in their household.”
Limited assistance
SUN Bucks is not without its flaws.
Families have just 122 days to access the funds, a short period compared to SNAP benefits, which expire after nine months of inactivity. According to DHHS, the countdown begins as soon as benefits become available, regardless of when recipients activate their cards.
Just getting the cards can be a struggle for families experiencing homelessness, said Tambra Chamberlain, a school social worker and founder of Moore County's transitional housing program for youth, especially for unhoused people in rural communities where “homelessness is a lot harder to find.”
“Some people are living in their cars or in the woods,” she said. “If they don't have an address, how are they going to get to their funds?”
SUN Bucks cards, intended for children “from families with unstable housing situations,” are sent to the social services department in the county where the child attends school. Social workers then give the cards to the child or their family, the department said.
Another issue is the amount of the benefit: food prices continue to rise, so $120 at the supermarket isn't much.
According to cost-of-living estimates from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., a two-parent, two-child household in Wake County spends about $1,113 a month on food — about $278 per child, more than double the summer SUN Bucks allowance.
Despite the program's limitations, Stephanie believes it provides “much-needed support to nearly one million children facing food insecurity across the state.”
“Right now, any program that receives federal funding comes with definite challenges because of trends out of Washington and some of the limitations that parts of Congress insist on imposing on these programs,” he said, “but overall, this will put money in families' pockets to buy groceries, which is always a very welcome addition and will be the most effective way we address hunger in our communities.”
