Colorado families with eligible children may be missing out on more than $50 million in food relief.
The window to apply for a pandemic response food relief program is closing. Colorado families with school- aged children who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch can apply for $279 in food benefits per child through September 23rd. The program, called Pandemic EBT, is the first of its kind and meant to help families cover the costs of food they incurred when school was let out across Colorado in March because of COVID-19.
Creating a new program comes with its challenges, including getting the information on the students who are eligible from nearly 200 school districts across the state. Data that was matched with Colorado’s SNAP program helped identify and issue benefits to more than 100,000 children, and an additional 50,000 have applied through a new online application the state created for the program. However, more than 200,000 students still qualify for the benefit and their families have only two weeks left to apply.
According to a survey of Coloradans by Hunger Free Colorado in June, 37 percent of families reported being food insecure, meaning they regularly couldn’t afford or have access to the food their family needed. One in four parents reported cutting back on their children’s meals in addition to their own. The rate of hunger is the highest we’ve seen in Colorado, three times what Coloradans experienced during the Great Recession.
If all eligible Colorado families applied for Pandemic EBT benefits, it would mean more than $100 million in help for families to buy food at Colorado retailers. Right now only about 44% of eligible Coloradans have received or applied for these benefits, leaving over $50 million in food relief for families on the table.
Now is the time to get this information to families. We know from survey after survey, Colorado families are struggling. We need our public leaders, school districts, teachers, advocates, everyone — to get the word out about this program. Colorado families are depending on us.
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Note: It is also important that the US Congress pass the next COVID-19 relief package and that it includes food relief, including an increase to SNAP benefits by 15% and extension of the Pandemic EBT program. The current Senate proposal, known as the skinny bill, is not enough. It would leave millions of people across the country, and in Colorado, hungry.