There are three food programs that families can sign up for if they're dealing with food insecurity. The first one is, National School Lunch Program(NSPL), A federal assisted meal programs that is operated in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions). This was established and signed by President Harry Truman in 1946. The second option being The School Breakfast Program (SBP), providing compensation for states to use in order for them to have breakfast services in schools and daycares. Lastly, another one of the programs that families are able to sign up for would be the Child and Adult Care Food Program. During the Pandemic, Congress passed a reflief fund allowing families to receive monthly assistance.

According to the US. Department of Health, we should intake about 2,000 calories daily. Imagine not being able to eat at least half of the calories we need. Think about if there were nights that you would go to sleep without eating anything. Unfortunately, these are some of things that families had to go through and may still be going through as this Pandemic continues. When it comes to young children, having daily nutrition is very important because it supports their physical and mental development. Studies have shown a lack of nourishment can cause a child to uninterested in activities, sleepy, easily irritated, negative influence in cognitive development, growth rate and many more things. It's important to be thankful for what we have.

Before the Pandemic arised, there were already 13.7 million families who were being assisted as well as going to meal sites. When COVID-19 hit, this number increased by 21.3 million people. That means the number of those dealing with food insecurity escalated more than double the amount there was already. When I spoke with my interviewee she stated“Most definitely, in my fifteen years of working at the USDA I have never seen our rates increase so quickly for the amount of people needing food assistance. The pandemic has definitely caused a serious strain on families financially, unfortunately.”(S. Jones, personal communication, February 15, 2021). A lot of schools and community services are gathering up food for families to pick up and feed their household.