Albertsons is looking to play a central role in fighting childhood hunger as school lets out for the summer.
The Albertsons Companies Foundation announced Wednesday the launch of a collective effort with nonprofits to boost awareness of and fuel participation in the USDA’s new program that will give low-income families $120 per eligible school-aged child to purchase groceries during the summer.
The Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer for Children Program (Summer EBT), which is also called Sun Bucks, is available in 37 states, all five U.S. territories and two tribal nations.
“Through the collective knowledge, expertise and extensive network of prominent nonprofits and the Albertsons Companies Foundation, we aim to connect with a greater number of families than we could individually,” Christy Duncan Anderson, president and executive director of Albertsons Companies Foundation, said in a statement.
The grocery benefits come during a time when school is out and aim to address food insecurity faced by children who rely on free or reduced-priced meals at school. For Albertsons and other grocers, the assistance program could help boost federal spending at stores a little more than a year after the Biden administration ended emergency SNAP funding.
The grocer’s Nourishing Neighbors program is working with an advisory group of food industry players, which collectively reach more than 200 food banks and 500 school districts and community groups, to help as many families as possible benefit from the program. The advisory group includes representatives from Feeding America, Food Research & Action Center, Gift Card Bank, Hunger Free America, mRelief, No Kid Hungry, Partnership for a Healthier America and WhyHunger.
The coalition has launched a new website to give families a way to check if they are eligible and connect to their state’s sign-up site. For families who are in states that are not participating in Sun Bucks, the site directs them to other resources like the USDA Summer Meals program and lets them write to their politicians to ask the state to participate next year.
Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot said that the nonprofit has advocated for the creation of a summer EBT program like Sun Bucks for more than a decade.