Last year, Stephanie Couch had some help getting through the summer months when her two daughters, ages 11 and 14, were out of school. Both girls receive free breakfast and lunch at school, but those meals disappear during the summer. In 2024, the Tennessee resident received Summer EBT — short for electronic benefit transfer — which loads $120 for each child onto a card that parents can use to buy groceries to fill that gap. “It meant a lot,” she said. She was able to buy all of the fruits and vegetables her growing children needed.
This summer looks different: While last year Tennessee and Indiana joined the Summer EBT program, also known as SUN Bucks, this year their Republican governors chose to opt out of the federal program. That left Couch with a lot less money. Some nights, meat was off the table; other times, dinner was just ramen. She’s skipped both meals and bills to get through the summer, sometimes not paying her electricity bill in full or paying her rent late. Her girls have noticed that there’s less food in the house. “When we don’t get nothing to eat, they know,” she said.
Couch, a single mother, works full time as a custodian on the Fort Campbell army base. “I’m not just laying around just waiting on a hand out. I work,” she said. “But I don’t make enough to really cover everything.”…