For the first time in five years, the majority of low-income students across Tennessee will not receive supplemental grocery funds this summer to help bridge the months when they aren’t receiving school meals.
Tennessee this week will send one-time $120 payments to an estimated 25,000 low-income students in 15 counties to help pay for summer grocery costs. Tennessee’s largest counties, include Shelby and Davidson, are excluded from the program.
The program is a significant rollback of Tennessee’s previous summer food benefits initiative, which served an estimated 700,000 students across the state each summer since 2020 with the help of a state-federal partnership…