Cuts to SNAP Program Will Affect Our Kids Most

United Way's Power Pack Provides an Answer to the Recent SNAP Food Assistance Cuts
by Nola Renz, Community Impact Manager - Early Grade Excellence

It’s hard to learn when you’re hungry. With the recent cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the issue of hunger becomes even more extreme. Before this cut, one in four or 300,000 children were already facing the threat of hunger each day in Pierce County. And what does that mean for these children?

They have difficulty concentrating. They are more irritable and tired. They lack the energy to engage and at times, their behavior becomes disruptive, impacting the learning for all children in the classroom.

They have poor academic performance. Children have difficulty learning when the hunger pains are gnawing at their stomach. When they are hungry, that is their focus not the book they are reading or the math they are supposed to be learning. Even before this cut, some of our children from homes without enough food came to school with their free school lunch from the previous day being their last meal. Tom Nelson, President of Share Our Strength said, “Access to healthy food is the number one school supply students need to succeed in the classroom.”

They have more headaches and stomachaches than their peers, which leads to time out of the classroom. In Pediatrics Vol. 110, No.4 (Oct. 2002), it states that “severe hunger in school-aged children is a significant predictor of chronic illness…and higher reported anxiety and depression.”

This news makes United Way of Pierce County’s Power Pack initiative even more critical. During the school days, many of these children receive nutritious food, but over the weekend they have nothing. That’s where Power Packs come in.  By providing backpacks filled with nutritious foods, including fruit and vegetables to children in the free and reduced lunch program, a Power Pack can help bridge the gap on the weekend. The children receive the backpacks on Friday’s filled with six kid-friendly meals to prevent them from being hungry. This program originally served kids in Tacoma School District but with United Way’s help is extending the program out to other school districts in the county.  With the cuts to SNAP, the need will likely increase.

We encourage you to get involved. Hold a food drive to collect kid-friendly foods needed to support Power Pack. Visit www.uwpc.org/PowerPack for more information on Power Pack and to access the list of needed foods.