From Curt Ellis, FoodCorps Co-Founder and CEO:

Together with communities, FoodCorps is closely monitoring the information from our government officials regarding COVID-19, which is now classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Some schools have announced closures, others are preparing to close out of an abundance of caution, and we anticipate that even more schools will close as the virus continues to spread.

We stand with our school communities in navigating this public health crisis—one that is exacerbated by disturbing structural inequity in our country’s education and health systems. In the United States, there are 50 million students enrolled in our public school system, and 30 million kids rely on school cafeterias for their daily meals. School closures impact families who depend on school meals for nourishment, which are predominantly people of color and households struggling to make ends meet. 

To be clear: children will go hungry if Congress and our administration do not provide solutions, and we need our government to take this matter as seriously as our schools. We urge our elected officials to bridge the partisan divide to ensure that kids will not go hungry by passing food security measures to support local communities.  

This is our call to action to our government leaders to rise to the occasion, and we hope that when they do, they recognize the opportunity to fight not just the virus but inequity.