Help Feed Our Kids

Floor Speech

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Ms. PRESSLEY. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Omar for bringing us together this afternoon and for her steadfast leadership on the issue of hunger and food insecurity, an issue that she has been leading on since she was in the Minnesota State Legislature. We are grateful for her shining a light consistently on this and the need for us to address rising hunger and its impact on communities here and around the globe.

Madam Speaker, across Massachusetts' Seventh District and across the Nation, families are facing unprecedented levels of food insecurity. I am reminded of the words of Coretta Scott King, who said: ``Starving a child is violence. Neglecting schoolchildren is violence.''

We can, in fact, do something about this violence.

I am picking up on the words of Congressman McGovern, a global champion in the fight against hunger and food insecurity, when he said that we should stop managing problems and solve them. This is a solvable problem.

A recent survey by the Greater Boston Food Bank found that nearly 2 million adults across the Commonwealth struggled to get enough to eat last year. It was Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ people and their families with children who were most likely to struggle.

No one should know hunger. No parent should know the heartache of putting their baby to sleep with an empty belly.

Our communities were already in the midst of a hunger crisis, one that we knew would be exacerbated by the pandemic. In response, my congressional colleagues and I acted to provide critical resources and flexibilities to support schools and communities in serving and meeting the needs of families and children in need. Schools across the Nation were able to keep school meal programs afloat while providing free meals to an additional 10 million students each day.

Boston Public Schools, the largest school district in my district, was able to serve over 330,000 students with free breakfasts and lunches across all city neighborhoods.

For many families, these meals were the only reliable source of nutrition throughout the day. They were a saving grace and a lifeline for families across my district and across the Nation, Madam Speaker.

In less than 2 weeks, these school lunch flexibilities are set to expire. We must act with urgency to avoid a hunger cliff that will fall hardest on our most vulnerable children. We must act to avoid a scenario where children will face a loss of 95 million meals over the course of the summer alone.

States and districts have been sounding the alarm. It was these calls from the community that prompted my colleagues, Representatives McGovern, Lee, and me, to send an urgent letter to House and Senate leaders, 1 month ago now, urging them to do everything in their power to extend these essential lifelines. Senate Minority Leader McConnell continues to block efforts to get this done. It is shameful yet unsurprising.

In one of the richest nations in the world, it is an absolute disgrace that millions of children struggle with food insecurity every single day. The clock is running out, and we have a mandate and a duty to get this done.

To my Republican colleagues, I urge them to join us in getting this done. Children, families, and school district leaders across the Nation simply cannot wait.

Once again, I thank my sister in service, Representative Omar, for her steadfast leadership.

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