The Pandemic’s Not Over for the Poor and Hungry

For some of us, the pandemic may feel over, but for families living in poverty, the impact is unrelenting. Many young children rely on nutritious school-provided meals during the school year, but what happens when they can’t access these programs in the summer, during a pandemic?

Single mother, Jennifer, was working each day while her daughters attended school and daycare. The family was getting by, living paycheck to paycheck, until the decision to close public schools in March of 2020 left Jennifer managing online learning for her three young girls. Laid off from her job in hotel management, Jennifer was falling behind on rent and bills, fast.

Under an immense amount of pressure to keep her apartment, Jennifer called her daughters’ school who referred her to FamilyAid Boston. She was soon introduced to a social services team and put on an emergency aid list for vital food and supplies. More than  a year later, despite lifting COVID restrictions, Jennifer’s family, along with hundreds of others, remain out of work and on this list today.

Jennifer and her girls will also spend this summer at home, urgently waiting for promised assistance from President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. The funds, when they arrive to families in need beginning late summer, will allow Jennifer to put her youngest daughter back in daycare when her older girls go back to school, allowing her to get back to work. Until the assistance arrives, she has no choice but to stay home.

Focused on her girls, Jennifer stays positive, working with her FamilyAid case manager, Margarita Ramirez, to navigate her mounting bills, her job search and her daughters’ schooling.

“We added Jennifer to our distribution list when the pandemic began, and she was out of a job,” says Margarita. “Biweekly cash payments along with weekly food deliveries are allowing her children to remain stably housed. We need to continue bridging the gap between the end of the school year [when the girls will no longer have school lunch] and the fall to keep this family afloat”.

Food insecurity remains a very real and worrisome problem.  A recent survey of our families revealed that 50% of the children and parents we serve will not have enough food on their tables without FamilyAid’s continued food deliveries.

With the support of generous donors, and USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Program, FamilyAid has been providing more than seven tons of shelf-stable food and fresh produce weekly to 1,600 children and parents  in our care.  Despite the recent, surprise discontinuation of the USDA program, we are committed to continuing this vital food program—at an additional cost of $15,000 a week—at least through Labor Day.

With school year ending this week, so will another source of nutritious meals that many children rely on.  During the summer, families like Jennifer’s need more healthy fruits, vegetables, yogurt, cheese & milk—items that are expensive and harder to access.

As families begin to dig themselves out of the economic sinkholes caused by the pandemic, we need to continue to support them. Our families are resilient, and the extra assistance of our relief program will help Jennifer and her girls along with hundreds of other children and parents, remain healthy and stably housed.

If you would like to help continue bridging the gap and keeping our families fed, please click here.