{"id":48243,"date":"2024-07-29T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T20:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=48243"},"modified":"2024-07-29T16:56:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T20:56:06","slug":"lakeland-nonprofit-seeing-impact-after-florida-opts-out-of-sun-bucks-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/07\/29\/lakeland-nonprofit-seeing-impact-after-florida-opts-out-of-sun-bucks-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland nonprofit seeing impact after Florida opts out of Sun Bucks program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Florida is one of about a dozen states that opted out of a federal program, a decision that nonprofits say could increase food insecurity for low-income families during the summer when children do not have easy access to school meals.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The USDA<\/a> estimates over 2 million kids in Florida would be eligible, totaling more than $250 million in benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now organizations that help with hunger are asking state officials to re-consider with a deadline for next year looming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amy Royal is a hands-on kind of person, especially when it comes to helping children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, we are predicting for the (2024-2025) school year over 4,000 children throughout Polk County that we will provide meals to,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Royal is the program and finance manager for KidsPack, an organization that helps feed children in Polk County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like a conveyor belt to get the meals packed and ready to go. Packages include non-perishable items children can eat at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Royal says, \u201cWe pack about half inside here and half is done out in the community through churches and organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the nonprofit started, Royal says the need has continued to grow, and recently it\u2019s gotten even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cOur numbers are going up because of the economic conditions that we have. When funding is taken away from children and food, it really impacts our families,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,<\/a> Florida is one of about a dozen states that decided to opt out of a new federal benefit called Sun Bucks or summer EBT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It provides eligible families $120 per child to buy groceries during the summer. However, the state would have had to cover 50% of the administrative costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Royal says without this benefit, more families have had to turn to KidsPack for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She says that is causing a strain on the non-profit which is not federally, or state-funded. Instead, they rely on sponsors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt really impacts our families, which in turn impacts our children, which in turn impacts every organization that is feeding families or children,” Royal said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 150 organizations from across the state have signed a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Department of Children and Families, urging the state to participate in the program next summer. They would need to apply by Aug. 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChildren are still hungry during the summer, children are still homeless during the summer, and they still need to eat during the summer,\u201d says Royal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether the state reconsiders or not, Royal says it won\u2019t change the need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, she says at KidsPack, they will continue to pack up and distribute as much food as they can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida\u2019s Department of Children and Families issued a statement, saying existing programs are enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also say the federal program came with “strings attached” in the form of operational costs that would be shared with the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida is one of about a dozen states that opted out of a federal program, a decision that nonprofits say could increase food insecurity for low-income families during the summer… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":48244,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Screenshot-58-11.png","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[9254],"class_list":["post-48243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-lakeland-nonprofit-seeing-impact-after-florida-opts-out-of-sun-bucks-program"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48246,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48243\/revisions\/48246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}