Ruth Patton’s 17-year-old daughter Ebony loves to cook.
She’s prepared African, Mexican and Korean cuisine, all from recipes found on TikTok. She tends to gravitate toward vegetable-heavy meals. Ebony and her mom love to feed other people, too.
At times the Greenville mother and daughter have turned to federal funding to help purchase groceries for Ebony’s cooking.
The Pattons often relied on the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer program, a food assistance program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that provided funding for supplemental meals for children during the school year at the height of COVID-19 pandemic.
While children nationwide have returned to in-person classes now have direct access to school lunches again, summer break can still leave some students with limited access to the food they need. In 2023, public officials saw the program’s need and expanded it beyond the school year to offer assistance during the summer.
But in January, South Carolina was one of 15 states to turn down an opportunity to implement a permanent version of the program in 2024.