FRAC Chat

Kristie To is a high school student who has been a leader in California’s school meals for all campaign. Kristie recently wrote an op-ed for Voices of OC, on the impact of free school meals on her and her family.

The following is an interview with Kristie and the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) on the impact of the free school meals for all campaign in California, as well as her advice on how youth can effectively use their voice and get involved in free school meals for all campaigns across the country.

In 2021, Maine passed landmark legislation guaranteeing healthy school meals for all students, but the groundwork leading up to this began years before.

Full Plates Full Potential was founded in 2014 out of what originally began as a legislative task force to address Maine’s high rate of student food insecurity.
The task force quickly recognized the need for a nonprofit and non-governmental organization dedicated solely to addressing childhood food insecurity and to leading the work, assembling coalition partners, and investigating best practices and sensible solutions related to the existing, yet underutilized, federal Child Nutrition Programs.

On December 12, 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the first Pandemic EBT plan for school year 2022–2023. Wisconsin’s plan includes benefits for both school-age children and children under 6 in child care. The state estimates that 80,000 school children, which includes 15,000 qualified homeschool1 or virtual students, and 95,000 children under 6 in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in child care are eligible to receive Pandemic EBT benefits. The state estimates that it could distribute approximately $110 million throughout the school year, beginning in January 2023.

During 2022, the country started to “return to normal,” while still grappling with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of households were struggling to make ends meet and to afford the food that they and their families need. Without the federal nutrition programs, hunger prior and during the pandemic would have been far worse. The pandemic offered critical lessons on how to effectively address hunger.
Here are 10 ways that Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) took bold steps toward a nation free from hunger.

Reinstating the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a historic opportunity to address hunger and improve the nutrition, health, and well-being of tens of millions of families across the country. That’s why more than 550 local, state, and national organizations working to end hunger signed on to a letter urging Congress to restore the expanded CTC and EITC in any end-of-year tax package.