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Editor’s Note: Gov. Josh Stein provided the keynote address at the 14th Annual NC Child Hunger Leaders Conference on Feb. 25, 2025. These are his remarks.
We’ve got school nutrition employees, food bank staff, church leaders, representatives of the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Clubs, educators, state and local government leaders, policy experts, and community advocates in the room.
You all are awesome because you are doing the work — the work that makes a difference in young people lives. Each of you is part of helping setting our kids up for success.
I genuinely want to thank you for everything you do in your communities back home, where you are rooted in your community.
I recently was in Pitt County and had a wonderful experience.
What I saw at Eastern Elementary reaffirmed what I know to be true, which is that our public schools are the backbone of our communities. They set our children up for success.
I was there during wellness week when teachers and school nutrition staff were teaching the students about healthy lunch options. I learned about eating the rainbow, which I thought was Skittles and a bad idea, but it turns out it’s eating all the different colors of the food pyramid.
Someone handed me a green smoothie, and I’m not particularly a green smoothie guy, but it was delicious. So I learned you sometimes need to try a new food, and you might be surprised about how good it is.
It didn’t stop at teaching kids about what healthy food options are. Pitt County is making sure that the students are actually eating and eating healthy in their classrooms.
Pitt County, like several other counties in the state, is taking the advantage of the USDA’s Community Eligibility Provision program — or CEP. Under CEP, if enough students in the school would qualify for free school meals, the entire school or district gets free meals and no one has to worry about applying for it.
It’s an incredible program because it doesn’t separate kids from their other friends. No one has to stress about do they qualify or not qualify. Did my parents remember to fill in the application this time or not? Am I going to feel embarrassed by going through the line and having some signifier that I got a free lunch when my friend’s parents were able to pay for their lunch? They can just eat in peace.
Since Pitt County started participating in the CEP program, they served 14% more lunches and 21% more breakfasts. And those aren’t just numbers. Those are kids who used to miss meals or whose meal was putting a strain on their family’s budget. Now they’re getting breakfast and lunch, and with a full belly, they’re ready to learn.
Because here’s what we know about kids and food. When kids can count on a free meal at school, their physical, mental, and behavioral health is better. They show up to school more consistently. They’re less likely to be tardy. They can focus better on learning, retaining what they’re taught. They get higher grades and better test scores. In long-term studies, kids who consistently got breakfast and lunch at school had stronger, long-term educational attainment outcomes.
In other words, if we want our kids to succeed, we’ve got to ensure they are fed.
A lot about education is complicated, but that truth is not.
At the same time we’re committed to giving kids more access to free meals when they’re at school, we have to support the whole ecosystem of food access and nutrition.
Studies show that one in five children in the state go hungry every day. In rural counties, that number jumps to one out of three. It’s terrible, unacceptable.
Part of the problem is when groceries are too expensive for too many families, and they can’t afford them. As a country, we try and mitigate that problem with evidence-based nutrition programs like SNAP and WIC. WIC safeguards the health of young children and their mothers and nearly 40% of SNAP households have children.
I know everyone in this room is probably concerned about the proposed cuts to SNAP that we’ve seen from the federal government, the slash of USDA staff. We don’t know where this is going to end, and it is legitimate for us to have real, grave concerns about this moment.
But we have to be motivated. We have to reach out to our federal congressional members. They have to know that there is a constituency that cares about the health and well-being of our children and will not accept these cuts lying down.
We have to build coalition. We have to reach out to agriculture, farmers — the number one industry in this state. They’ve got skin in this game as well.
You all know those bars that USAID provides to hungry children abroad? They’re peanut paste. Those bars come from paste made from North Carolina peanuts. Farms may have just lost one of the biggest customers they had selling to USAID to keep children who were struggling to stay alive fed.
The impacts of the cuts from this administration have been alarming, sweeping.
Getting kids the nutrition they need whether they live in Raleigh or Rwanda should be something that brings us together. It should be an easy yes.
That’s never been truer in our state than in the wake of Hurricane Helene. At least five food banks out west were hit by Hurricane Helene. MANNA food bank’s Asheville location in Swannanoa was completely lost. The building is gone. All of its inventory — worth about $5 million — wiped down the river.
Despite the losses, our other food banks sprung into action to get food to our neighbors out west. Feeding the Carolinas, MANNA Food Bank, the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, and many others in this room were part of teams that prepared meals, organized volunteers, and sourced food donations to where they were most needed.
If you played any role like I just described for western North Carolina, just raise your hand. Thank you all.
In my Hurricane Helene initial needs budget that I submitted to the General Assembly, part of my request was $20 million to fill the food banks’ stores so that they could feed the people out west. Unfortunately, that is not in the General Assembly’s initial $500 million budget. I need your help to reach out with the legislature to tell them to stand up for the people of western North Carolina.
When it comes to school meals, there’s a lot we could be doing better as a state to solve child hunger, but there is a lot that we are doing right. I want to praise the General Assembly for eliminating school lunch debt in last session’s appropriations bill. Their efforts eliminated student co-pays for reduced meals and got rid of administrative penalties for unpaid meal debt. I want to thank them for ensuring that school lunch debt will no longer stop any child from graduating high school.
Last year, DHHS partnered with the Department of Public Instruction to implement the USDA’s SUN Bucks program for the first time. As many of you all know, summertime is one of the hungriest times of the year for young people, leaving parents wondering how they’re going to feed their children in those summer months.
Through SUN Bucks, eligible families receive a one-time payment of $120 per child, to help them to buy groceries over the course of the summer. Last summer, we helped feed over one million children over the course of the summer. One million.
Our state was fortunate to partner with philanthropic groups that helped us pay the modest investment needed — the match — so that we received nearly $130 million in federally-funded benefits for students.
This summer, we’ve got to bring SUN Bucks back to North Carolina. Summer should be a time of fun and making memories, not experiencing hunger.
Our state has made progress, but I am well aware of the work that remains to ensure that no child goes hungry in the state.
I ran for governor because I believe in the promise of North Carolina. Our children should have a better and brighter future than we have had. Our work here feeding young people is one way to deliver on that promise.
Each of us has a role when it comes to feeding our children. I urge everyone here to keep the faith and to continue your amazing work, bringing meals to our kids.
I ask you to contact our state legislators and urge them to include school meals in this year’s appropriations bills. Some of you may be aware we are facing a self-inflicted fiscal cliff in the years ahead — $800 million shortfall in just two years in a state that’s growing with a strong economy. It makes no sense. It’s hard to wrap our head around that if we’re in a difficult economic position. Despite years of having surplus, the legislature’s pre-programmed future corporate and personal income tax cuts threaten our ability to pay for the things that we need as a state, whether it’s recovering from Hurricane Helene, investing in public safety, and yes, paying our teachers or paying for our school meals.
But it is not too late for us to right the ship, to get our budget back on track.
So let’s continue our advocacy. Let’s continue to draw strength from the knowledge that our work can make children lives better. We are rooted in our communities. We recognize the gravity of the situation ahead of us, the urgency of solving child hunger, but we also have hope because we know we can solve this problem if we work together.
So let’s go, let’s get to work, and let’s build a thing that is safer, stronger, and healthier for everyone, including our young people.
