{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.warnock.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warnock-colleagues-urge-governor-kemp-to-deliver-summer-meals-to-hungry-kids/", "Warnock, Colleagues Urge Governor Kemp to Deliver Summer Meals to Hungry Kids", "2025-08-11", "2025", "2025-08", "Democrat", "Senate", "GA", "Raphael G. Warnock", "W000790", "www.warnock.senate.gov", "warnock", "https://www.warnock.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock and Rep. Lucy McBath led colleagues from Georgia\u2019s congressional delegation in a letter to Governor Brian Kemp urging immediate action to feed vulnerable GA kids next summer\n\nMore than 1.1 million low-income children in Georgia are eligible for the Summer EBT program administrated by USDA\n\nIn 2024, Gov. Kemp left over $138 million in summer nutrition benefits unclaimed\n\n2025 is the second consecutive year Georgia has not participated in the program\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senators Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA), alongside Representatives Lucy McBath (D-GA-06), Hank Johnson (D-GA-04), David Scott (D-GA-13) Sanford Bishop (D-GA-02) and Nikema Williams (D-GA-05) urged Governor Brian Kemp to ensure vulnerable Georgia children can access nutritious food by opting into the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s (USDA) Summer EBT nutrition program for 2026. The move could help feed more than 1.1 million low-income children in Georgia next summer.\n\n\u201cSummer EBT would provide the poorest children and families with a $40 benefit per eligible child per month, totaling $120 dollars for the summer. Of the roughly 2.8 million children in Georgia, over 40% of them are eligible for this benefit but are prevented from participating due to your continued decision to not participate in the program. Committing to participate in Summer EBT is a basic step to ensuring that every child in our state, regardless of where they live or how much money their parents make, has access to the basic necessity of food when they are not in school,\u201d the delegation said.\n\nSummer is often the most challenging season for food insecure kids across the country, as millions of kids that rely on the federal school lunch program during the academic year are forced to go without regular access to nutritious meals. USDA\u2019s Summer EBT program, also known as SUN Bucks, helps low-income families bridge the gap by providing $40 in grocery buying benefits per eligible child, totaling $120 for the summer months. Since its inception in 2024, Gov. Kemp has refused to opt Georgia into the USDA summer nutrition program. Nearly a quarter of Georgia students live in households without enough food, making Georgia one of the most food insecure states for children in the country.\n\nThe lawmakers\u2019 letter to Governor Kemp comes at a time when impending cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) outlined in President Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill may make accessing free and reduced-price school meals harder for the low-income students who need them. Cuts to these federal programs will leave millions of low-income Americans without some or all of the food assistance they need to put meals on the table. In Georgia, over 1.4 million people rely on the SNAP program and over 77% of Georgia counties with the highest rates of SNAP participation are rural.\n\nSenator Warnock has long fought for continued federal support of food assistance programs like SNAP and The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) which provides federal funds for food banks and other emergency food providers. In March, Senator Warnock led his Senate colleagues in urging the Trump administration to reconsider cuts to the TEFAP program, which could result in $500 million in lost food provisions to feed millions of hungry Americans.\n\nRead full text of the letter HERE and below:\n\nGovernor Kemp,\n\nWe write to you again to request your commitment to Georgia\u2019s participation in the United States Department of Agriculture\u2019s (USDA) Summer EBT program.\n\nThis month marks the end of the second consecutive year that you have refused to participate in USDA\u2019s Summer EBT program despite the overwhelming rates of hunger and food insecurity across our state. Additionally, your office never responded to either of our letters requesting that Georgia participate in Summer EBT in 2025 nor did your office provide families in our state with more information on how you came to the decision to not participate.\n\nAs mentioned in previous letters, Summer EBT would provide the poorest children and families with a $40 benefit per eligible child per month, totaling $120 dollars for the summer. Of the roughly 2.8 million children in Georgia, over 40% of them are eligible for this benefit but are prevented from participating due to your continued decision to not participate in the program.\n\nCommitting to participate in Summer EBT is a basic step to ensuring that every child in our state, regardless of where they live or how much money their parents make, has access to the basic necessity of food when they are not in school.\n\nChildren in Georgia again went without consistent access to food this summer. A May 2025 newsletter from Georgia\u2019s Department of Early Care and Learning stated that only 103 of Georgia\u2019s 159 counties had a Summer Food Service Program meal site in 2024 and identified 56 counties without a meal site. Participating in Summer EBT will help bridge that gap and ensure that families have an effective resource to rely on while the state continues to make progress on its self-stated goal to expand meal sites to every county.\n\nThis matter takes on another level of importance given the impending cuts to Medicaid and SNAP as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Because of these cuts, children will lose access to free and reduced priced school meals. Families in Georgia also needlessly face increased food insecurity during the summertime due to your refusal to participate in Summer EBT.\n\nWe again ask that you commit to participating in the summer of 2026 and submit Georgia\u2019s Interim Plan for Operations and Management (iPOM) no later than August 15, 2025, and the appropriate Notice of Intent (NOI) to participate no later than January 1, 2026, to USDA for consideration and approval. We encourage you to engage in good faith on this issue and submit all appropriate materials as soon as possible.\n\nWe look forward to your response.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:02:47Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.warnock.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warnock-colleagues-urge-governor-kemp-to-deliver-summer-meals-to-hungry-kids/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3877919409424067, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}