By Alyssa Johnson
As Atlanta Public Schools are set to close for summer break next week, one of the main questions on Kimberly Duke’s mind is how she will feed her children.
The mother of 10, and executive director of the education advocacy group Atlanta Thrive, is well aware of the hardships many APS families face when schools close down for the summer.
Currently five of Dukes’ children attend a school in the APS system, where the majority of students are Black and eligible for free and reduced-price lunches.
“I live in fear sometimes because I’m a mom of 10 kids, so I know how hard it is to not only worry about where we’re gonna sleep at night, but how I’m gonna feed my kids,” Dukes told Capital B Atlanta. “That is a big concern.”
The federal program that could have assisted Dukes by providing extra money for groceries over the summer won’t be an option for her or any other Georgia families as Gov. Brian Kemp chose to opt out of the program for the second year in a row.
Summer EBT, also known as SUN Bucks, provides qualifying families with $120 for each eligible child in their household for the summer months. Designed to help feed children who receive free and reduced-price lunches at school, Congress approved the program in 2022 for use when public schools are closed or have limited hours.
Georgia is one of 11 states that will not take part in the program for summer 2025, according to USDA’s website. The decision to opt out of the program for another summer comes as at a time when House Republicans successfully pushed for major budget cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, in the coming years. Thursday, the House passed a bill that approved more than $300 billion in cuts to the SNAP program over the next 10 years.
These state and federal legislative decisions impact Black children in Georgia in particular, as they are twice as likely to face food insecurity compared to white residents. In Fulton County, approximately 19% of children faced food insecurity in 2023, according to Feeding America.
And the problem expands past that metro area. Hancock County, a predominantly Black region of Georgia, had one of the highest rates of childhood food insecurity in the country in 2023, with almost 47% of children not having access to enough food to lead a healthy, active life, according to Feeding America.
Black families in Georgia are also overrepresented on the SNAP rolls. In 2020, Black people comprised 33% of the state’s population and more than half of SNAP participants, according to the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
Danah Craft, the executive director of Feeding Georgia, said that because of historic inequities like redlining and underinvestment, Black communities are already burdened by food deserts, and cuts to SNAP could make things worse.
“I believe that the kind of cut in benefits and the pressure of reduced SNAP spending could make it even harder for those communities to access groceries,” said Craft.
For Dukes and other families in the APS system, these policy decisions are doubly worrisome.
“If you live in the city of Atlanta, you see the homeless population. If we cut the food … it’s gonna be worse,” said Dukes. “I’m concerned for me. I’m concerned for my neighbors. I’m concerned for the people across town.”
Last year, Kemp’s office shared concerns with Capital B Atlanta about Summer EBT’s economic and nutritional value.
Garrison Douglas, Kemp’s press secretary, said in February that there were no updates on the state’s stance on the program, calling Summer EBT a “pandemic-era, Biden administration program that lacks nutritional standards and fiscal accountability.”
The governor’s office did not immediately respond for comment on any updates to the state’s participation in the program.
Congressional House Republicans are looking to cut federal spending by $880 billion during the next 10 years. The cuts are part of President Donald Trump and his administration’s effort to curb federal spending to offset the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for high-income earners.
The national SNAP program is one of the costs they want to minimize.
Georgia Congresswoman Lucy McBath, who was outspoken in February about Kemp’s decision to not participate in Summer EBT this year, said that the SNAP cuts coupled with the decision to not partake in the summer program are “devastating” for Georgia families.
“There’s so many people within Georgia that are already suffering from food insecurity, so you’re talking about, even more so, taking food out of the mouths of our children and our seniors and our veterans and families that are struggling every single day just to make ends meet and keep food on the table,” said McBath in an interview this week with Capital B Atlanta.
House Republicans plan to achieve federal budget cuts by requiring states to begin paying 75% of administrative costs of the program if the legislation is passed, whereas currently states pay only half. They also would require states to begin sharing the cost of SNAP benefits for the first time. Georgia would be positioned as one of the states to pay up to 25% of the program’s benefit costs. This could add around $7 billion to the state budget over the next 10 years, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
If the bill becomes law, these changes wouldn’t come into effect until fiscal year 2028. Critics of the legislation worry changes in costs could force states to either reduce SNAP benefit amounts or restrict eligibility for the program altogether.
Nonprofit groups in the city like the Atlanta Community Food Bank will try to fill in the gaps created by these cuts will leave behind, but higher levels of demand for food have left many organizations spread thin.
Dukes believes now more than ever, community members need to tell their elected officials how these policy decisions impact their families’ lives.
“If it’s going to affect them in their household, then they need to use their voice and speak out, find their power, organize other parents and community members alongside these issues so that we can make sure that decision-makers at least hear from us,” said Dukes.
Photo: As summer break approaches, the state of Georgia forgoes food benefits for the second year in a row. (Manon Allard/Getty Images)