Help Feed Our Kids

Floor Speech

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Ms. STANSBURY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge this body to pass urgent legislation to help feed our children.

If we do not act, millions of children across the United States and across New Mexico will lose access to vital school meals--breakfast and lunches that are helping to address an epidemic of food insecurity that is impacting every single corner of our State and our country.

Food insecurity has many faces. Like so many children from New Mexico, I was a school lunch kid. I qualified for 100 percent free and reduced-price lunch throughout my entire childhood. In fact, one in four children in New Mexico are facing food insecurity and hunger, and for many of these kids, school meals are the only reliable meal of the day.

In New Mexico food is the center of our cultures, of our families, of our ways of life, and yet, so many of our families are struggling every single day to put food on the table.

For every family food insecurity looks different. It may mean skipping meals, not being able to buy groceries every week, relying on school lunches in order to feed children, and getting help from a local food pantry and a local food bank.

In many cases, we know the pandemic has caused our families to struggle even more, made the situation worse, intensified food and hunger insecurity across our Nation, and that is why the work of this body here in Congress to expand funding for nutrition programs to extend these waivers and include school meals for every child in America is quite literally a lifeline for our families and for our children.

If Congress, and especially the Senate, do not act, millions of children across America will actually lose access to school meals that have carried them through the pandemic. This comes as our Nation is grappling with disruptions to supply chains, inflation, rising costs, and putting stresses on families across our country.

In exactly one month--days from now--our country will be facing a hunger cliff as Federal waivers for school meals are set to expire and children will lose access to 95 million meals across the country this summer.

I have worked on food and hunger issues across my entire public policy career. In New Mexico, we are working every day to reimagine our food systems, to lift up our State's diverse and crucial food and agriculture traditions and support our families who are struggling.

As a State legislator, I was deeply proud to partner with our Governor and my colleagues in the State house and hunger advocates and agricultural entities across the State to address food insecurity and to pass a bill to end school meal copays.

Here in Congress, I am proud to continue this work alongside antihunger champions like yourself, Madam Speaker, and as part of the Hunger Caucus led by Chairman McGovern.

I am also proud to cosponsor H.R. 3115, the Universal School Meals Program Act, which would address this crisis permanently by providing three locally sourced meals a day to every school child in America.

The time to act is now. Our kids are counting on us. During the pandemic, Congress made a game-changing decision--to feed all children without barriers, without bureaucratic obstacles.

This is about the dignity and well-being of our families and meeting the most basic needs of our children.

We have the opportunity to chart a new path forward for our country. Will we decide to be a nation that lets our kids go hungry or will we decide to be a nation where no child should ever have to experience food insecurity again?

This is the choice facing this body, and this, Madam Speaker, is why we must extend school meals.

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