Students spend spring break at SC State House to highlight important cause to them
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina State House may not scream “spring break destination” for most people.
But a handful of students were there Wednesday, during their week off from school, to get some face time with lawmakers on an issue they see affecting their peers daily: hunger.
“School meals for all, make the state pay for it!” they chanted in the first-floor lobby of the State House.
The students grabbed senators’ attention Wednesday as they walked in, encouraging them to put money and legislation toward expanding school meal access.
Estimates show hundreds of thousands of kids in South Carolina face hunger.
“I see lots of it,” Jeremiah Morgan, a sophomore at Stratford High School in Goose Creek, said. “Over the years, it’s increased over time. It wasn’t a problem when I was in kindergarten and that stuff, but it’s gotten worse.”
Some of them held signs calling attention to bipartisan bills to provide universal free meals in all South Carolina public schools, which currently sit in their respective Senate and House of Representatives committees.
That push has been championed by Sen. Katrina Shealy, the lead sponsor of the Senate version of the legislation.
“I hope they get the message. I hope my colleagues are looking at the signs. I hope my colleagues hear the children chant, ‘Free meals for schools,’ and ‘Feed the children,’” Shealy, R – Lexington, said after greeting the student visitors.
Right now, a Senate panel is investigating the recent disclosure of nearly $2 billion in unallocated taxpayer money, whose owner is unknown.
Advocates gathered at the State House on Wednesday say just a fraction of that money could feed kids across the state.
“Being able to provide these free school meals is a small investment to ensure that they are able to achieve their academic potential,” Meg Stanley, executive director of the nonprofit Wholespire, said.
Next week, the Senate’s budget-writing committee will meet to finalize its version of next year’s spending plan.
Wholespire, which works to provide access to nutritious food and physical activity across South Carolina, hopes to see legislators renew a temporary law, called a proviso, that encourages participation in a federal offering called the Community Eligibility Provision.
It covers the costs of breakfasts and lunches for all students in a school or district if enough students in that school or district qualify for free meals.
“By our estimates, there’s only about 13 districts that could qualify to participate but are not. Those districts, unless they can show a financial burden for some reason, then they should be able to participate at no real cost to them,” Stanley said. “What we really want is for the Senate Finance Committee to then fund those schools and provide the difference if they do have a financial burden.”
South Carolina also declined to participate in a federal program that would have given families money over the summer to buy groceries if their students qualify for free meals during the school year, a continuation of a program that started during the pandemic.
One analysis found more than half-a-million kids would have qualified, but the governor ultimately made the call to not participate, saying pandemic-era programs need to come to an end.
Shealy called that decision a mistake.
“Nobody likes to say we’re taking federal money, but let me tell you, if we don’t take it, somebody else is taking it,” she said. “So are their children more important than our children? I don’t think so.”
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