Saving hungry kids’ lunches from government overreach
When I was in elementary and middle school, a typical school lunch might have consisted of a rectangular object that we were told was pizza, bland corn, a cup of beans topped by a thick layer of congealed “bean juice,” and of course, chocolate milk. It was a culinary tragedy, but it was a temporary one.
Once summer came along, I could eat at home—giving me a reprieve from this wanton torture—but as an adult, I’ve come to realize that this is a privilege that not every child enjoys. Around 9 million American children are food insecure, and a 2014 estimate suggested that one in four youths in Georgia go hungry during the summer months.
One charity in particular—MUST Ministries—has taken on this issue with their Summer Lunch program, which began in 1995, but not without ample government interference. At its inception, the program was intended to provide sack lunches to underprivileged kids in June and July, and it found a creative way of doing so.
Volunteers across the metro Atlanta area assembled many of the meals at their homes or churches and delivered the sack lunches to MUST Ministries. The nonprofit then ensured that the food ended up in children’s hands. In 2018 alone, “MUST provided 259,154 sack lunches in seven counties to feed the most at-risk children,” reads a MUST Ministries press release.
After operating in this manner for 23 years and reportedly not having a single child fall ill in connection to their food, in 2019, the government shut the program down as they knew it. The government’s grievance was that the meals weren’t assembled in state-approved kitchens, which implies that the government would rather children go hungry than have food made at a volunteer’s home. I’d imagine that food insecure people would respectfully disagree.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Charities across the country have faced heavy-handed regulations wielded by overzealous bureaucrats. Under threat of criminal charges, one California project was forced to temporarily stop feeding the homeless at a park because they didn’t have the appropriate permit allowing for the assemblage of six or more people.
A Missouri nonprofit came under fire for providing soup made at volunteers’ homes to the homeless without a permit. To make sure the food didn’t go to the underprivileged, government regulators poured bleach on it. Even children who want to raise money for a noble cause by putting up a lemonade stand might get shut down by the long arm of the law in some states.
Rather than packing up and accepting defeat, MUST Ministries adapted to the new challenges. The Legislature passed the “Save our Sandwiches” bill, which eased some—but not nearly all—of the burdens nagging the program. Meanwhile, MUST revamped the Summer Lunch program to avoid the government’s ire, and thanks to generous donors and corporate partnerships, they persevered. In fact, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the government—in what must have been a very humbling moment for bureaucrats—looked to MUST for help.
“To continue to support Cobb students while schools are closed [due to the pandemic], the Cobb County School District is partnering with MUST Ministries to provide food to students in need,” according to an 11 Alive news article. MUST answered the call, filled a void that the government apparently couldn’t and put children first.
Despite the government targeting the Summer Lunch program, it is still thriving, and MUST has big plans this year. “MUST’s goal is to provide breakfast and lunch to at least 6,000 children for 9 weeks,” reads their website. “An estimated 540,000 meals will be distributed across eight counties (Bartow, Cobb, Cherokee, Douglas, Fulton, Paulding, Pickens & Gwinnett).”
The Summer Lunch program isn’t exactly the community project that it once was—with volunteers no longer busily making sandwiches at their homes—but it serves a vital need. However, maintaining such a charity takes a delicate balancing act—requiring dedicated volunteers, donors and corporate partners.
As WSBTV reported, “Inflation costs at the grocery store have contributed to an increase in the number of families who need food and a decrease in the number of donations.” Without even factoring in government meddling, it’s becoming harder for charities to achieve their objectives thanks to today’s economic realities. Nevertheless, I have faith that MUST will continue to find ways of reaching their goals, and their meals will taste far better than some of the horrendous school lunches that I endured.