CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Governor Reynolds’ new summer food program is up and running. “Healthy Kids Iowa” tries to get families healthier food at a lower cost. It’s also the program replacing summer EBT.
Together We Achieve is one of more than 200 distribution sites all over the state and one of 23 in Linn county participating in this program.
The volunteer-based nonprofit food pantry has other programs throughout the year and says it’s important for the community to have access to free and healthy food
“As a grassroots organization, we can show up each and every day and try to serve people in our community who are facing food insecurity,” Raymond Siddell, Founder of Together We Achieve, said.
This food pantry is found in one of Cedar Rapids’ food deserts and serves upwards of a 100 families each operational day.
“We all just hope that our neighbors, we believe that our neighbors have the food that they need and that nobody in our neighborhood, regardless of where we live, is facing food insecurity or hunger in any way,“ Siddell said. “But we know that’s not true. and so it’s great that we can be here and participate in our daily pantry that we offer and then also special programs such as Healthy Kids Iowa.”
This program is designed as a replacement for Sun Bucks or Summer EBT cash. It’s for families who fall under the 185% federal poverty level and have kids between the ages of four and 18.
For a family of four, that’s about 59,477.50 dollars a year. Sun Bucks gave low income families 40 dollars a month in the summer on an EBT card, so families could get food themselves.
Together We Achieve Co-Founder Mathew Salger says although this is new, families still get healthy food to take home.
“With that really fast thing, we also kind of learned as we went tonight,” Salger said.
“And, the nice thing is the families were very understanding,” he said. “They were very grateful. They were very gracious to us as we tried to learn what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. And I think it actually worked more efficiently than I thought it was going to. And, a lot of great quality food went out to families, which is awesome.”
HACAP is another distribution site in Linn County for Healthy Kids Iowa. Officials there shared with Iowa’s News Now that there have been some hiccups with the rollout this month.
HACAP Food Reservoir Director Kim Guardado said in a statement:
“It took longer than anticipated for HHS to get the approval from the USDA, therefore shortening the amount of time food banks had to purchase food and get it out to partners.”
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