JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Nearly fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty, yet today the Census Bureau finds 15 percent of Americans are poor. This week, nearly fifty community groups gather in Jefferson City to renew the battle against poverty.

Angela Roffle received food stamps twenty years ago to help her raise her children while she finished college. With a master's degree in social work, she now teaches at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. She says many of her students today work but can't dig themselves out of poverty.

"At least once a week, a student has come to me and says, 'I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight.' 'They cut me off of food stamps because I worked two, three hours over.'"

Roffle is concerned about threatened cuts to the food stamp budget when the farm bill comes up again in Congress. According to the Food Research and Action Center, last year more than 18 percent of Missourians struggled to afford food.

One of the major goals of the summit is to try to find out why there seems to be no winning the war on poverty after almost half a century.

Roffle said many of her students who can't make ends meet just keep on trying.

"They're phenomenal, because a number of them are even homeless," she stated. "But they are coming to class. They are finding ways to study. They don't have computers at home so they are there at the hours that they have to at the computer labs."

The Missouri Association for Social Welfare (MASW) says food stamp usage is particularly high in some areas of Missouri. In five counties - including rural areas such as Pemiscot and Washington but more urban St. Louis County as well - 30 percent or more of the population receives food stamps.

According to the organization's director, Jeanette Mott Oxford, there are a lot of factors that keep people poor, including the high cost of health care, low-paying jobs, and holes in the safety net.

"You know, you make a dime too much and you fall off the cliff," she charged. "But the other end of the cliff is like $10,000 out ahead of you, where you could really make enough to pay for all those things for yourself - and that's quite a disincentive to try to move forward."

The Poverty Summit is sponsored by Missourians to End Poverty, a coalition of nearly 50 groups including MASW, Catholic Charities, Missouri National Education Association and Missouri Food Bank Association.

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School nutrition providers told Ohio lawmakers this week they're tired of hounding parents for school lunch money when their child's account accrues debt.

Each week, said Daryn Guarino, director of food and nutrition at the Alexander Local School District, he reminds around 250 families that have begun to accumulate lunch debt. That's more than one-third of the school's population.

"I'm not trying to be a debt collector," he said. "I need to not hit the hard stop, because at that point, I'm going to have to look at this child and tell them they can't eat today. And it's heartwrenching to see it. And it's even worse to know that it's coming."

According to the group Hunger Free Schools Ohio, it would cost the state less than $2 per child per day to provide free meals to all students in the state. One in six children - and as many as one in four in some counties - live in households that face hunger.

COVID-era federal policies provided universal free meals to kids. Guarino said the end of those polices, combined with inflation and rising living costs, have forced more families to leave their kids' school lunch accounts in the red.

"It causes so much stress among our staff that, a lot of the times, they'll start reaching into their own pockets," he said.

The Children's Defense Fund reported that school lunch debt has more than doubled this year from pre-pandemic levels.

Better health and educational outcomes are being touted as Arkansans recognize March as School Breakfast Month.

Research has proven providing students breakfast at school can lead to better attendance, fewer trips to the school nurse, and improved classroom attention and behavior. One in five children faces hunger in Arkansas.

Patti Barker, campaign director for the No Kid Hungry Campaign at the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, said breakfast is still the most important meal of the day, especially for at-risk students. Barker noted the alliance has partnered for a decade with other advocacy groups who want to improve options for kids.

"Our goal is to make sure kids have access to the good nutrition they need every day all year round, whether they're in school or out of school or at home," Barker explained. "The best way to access that good nutrition at school is to make sure those kids or eating both school breakfast and lunch. "

Barker pointed out the USDA's School Breakfast Program also plays a role in ensuring all Arkansas students are healthy, active, and ready to learn every day, helping them thrive.

Vivian Nicholson, breakfast program director for the No Kid Hungry Campaign is encouraging school districts to sign up for the "DIG IN-to School Breakfast" challenge, which includes increasing kids' participation in school breakfast and creating the most innovative breakfast promotion using social media.

"[A] third category is new innovative breakfast items, new items that engage kids to come and eat breakfast," Nicholson outlined. "We use examples of smoothies or yogurt parfait, Apple nachos, and sliced apples with yogurt and granola on top."

Nicholson added they will collect recipes and participating school districts will have a chance to win prizes ranging from $500 to $1,500. She added there are also grants programs in place to provide breakfast throughout the school day to kids who need it, not just in the cafeteria before the bell rings.


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Preliminary data shows schools are serving fewer meals than they did last year, largely due to the end of nationwide pandemic-era waivers which allowed schools to serve meals at no cost to all children. According to a recent report, Kentucky saw a 34% increase in lunch participation and a nearly 3% increase in the number of kids who ate breakfast at school over the past few years.

Clarissa Hayes, Deputy Director for School and Out-of-School Time Programs at the Food Research & Action Center, said the gap between Kentucky kids receiving breakfast and lunch now appears to be widening as kids and families go back to the tiered eligibility system used to determine who qualifies for free school meals.

"For Kentucky, what we saw is that for the breakfast-to-lunch comparison, for every 100 children receiving a lunch, about 65 are receiving a breakfast," Hayes said. "So, that's a little bit lower than the year before where, for every 100 children receiving lunch, 85 are receiving a breakfast."

Research shows regular school meals improve kids' academic performance, mental health and nutritional intake. Federal data from 2019 shows nearly 15-million students ate a school breakfast and nearly 30-million students ate school lunch on a typical day.

There are pathways to ensuring that consistent access to healthy school meals is a reality for all kids, Hayes said.

"Ideally, that would be expanded, expanded on the federal level, but we are seeing many states that are taking it upon themselves to pass legislation to make sure that all kids are getting those meals at no cost," she said.

Some states are stepping up to fill the gap to cover the cost of school meals regardless of kids' eligibility, including California, Maine and Colorado.


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