A few times a month, I frost cakes for kids I’ve never met.
Through volunteer work, I’ve signed up with Birthday Bundles, a nonprofit that facilitates the delivery of baked goods to children within underserved communities on their birthdays. It’s very rewarding. The kids love sweets, and the parents love their kids.
But every single time, I’m left with the uncomfortable truth: for some of the kids, that cake might be the most substantial food they eat all day.
Thinking about birthdays segwayed me into thinking harder about child hunger in Georgia. Birthdays are one day, and cakes might feed a child for an evening. But hunger, for too many kids in this state, is every day. And well rounded nutrition is more comprehensive than frosting and candles.
The problem
For the majority of counties in Georgia, the percent of food insecure children falls between 9 and 45 percent. Today, Feeding America estimates that nearly half a million children face food insecure in Georgia. Gwinnett and Dekalb County, 2 of 159 counties, account for a tenth of that figure. Post pandemic, food insecurity jumped to a record high in the state, with over 100,000 children being added to the food insecure population and the rate jumping 4 percent from 2019 to 2023.
Food insecurity in childhood isn’t just about short-term hunger pangs; it’s tied to long-term developmental delays, decreased academic performance, chronic illness, and life-long socioeconomic costs that follow kids into adulthood.
According to Emory University, recent SNAP reforms have downsized the program 20 percent, and maxed most benefits out at $9 per individual per day, barely enough to cover a singular meal. Work requirements of 20 hours a week have been expanded for some recipients 14 and older, leaving Georgia high schoolers stranded without benefits. On top of that, the bill recommends the dollar amount of benefits does not get adjusted based on current food costs.
Why the safety net isn’t catching everyone
Georgia, like most states, leans heavily on free and reduced school meals, SNAP, WIC, and food banks to offset hunger. However, significant gaps remain.
School meals are often treated as the default solution; however, this model has structural problems. One, and most glaringly, it is active only during the school year, leaving anywhere from a 10- to 16-week gap over breaks. Even during the school year, meals are limited to lunch and possibly breakfast, excluding dinner, weekends, or days a child is sick or absent. Poverty is also directly correlated to absenteeism, according to research conducted by Michael Gottifried and Kevin Gee, Professors of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California Davis. Children of lower socioeconomic status faced increased odds of chronic absenteeism, missing 10 percent or more in a school year. The students who need these meals the most are unable to receive them.
And then there’s also the stigma factor: children receiving free meals may feel singled out by classmates. This stigma can be so strong that children won’t eat, according to research led by Juliana Cohen, an Adjunct Professor of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. 42 percent of families eligible for free or reduced school meals said that their child would be less likely to eat a school meal unless that stigma is taken away.
And for those who try to enroll, the application process itself (paperwork, income verification, renewal requirements) creates barriers that cause eligible families to fall through the cracks. According to the Urban Institute, the most common reason in 2024 for SNAP benefit loss was recertification challenges, not having enough time to recertify after notification (40 percent) or not receiving a notification at all (32 percent.)
What could move the needle?
Food banks, pantries, and nonprofits like the one I volunteer with are stopgap measures. They were never designed to fix structural problems, only provide emergency relief.
So, if our current policies aren’t enough, what would be?
The best solution would provide year-round meals, avoid administrative barriers, and prevent a stigma developing around food insecurity.
Universal school meals, which states like California, Maine, and Colorado have already adopted, remove the stigma and administrative barriers entirely. Every kid eats, moving Georgia’s school meals program from means-tested to universal. Georgia’s Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is already used in 1,300+ schools, but according to the Georgia Department of Education, 40.7 percent of eligible schools still don’t take part. Gwinnett, Georgia’s largest school district, has more eligible non-participating CEP schools (127) than entire states.
A more conservative option would be year-round meal access. This involves expanding programs like Summer EBT (also known as Sun BUCKS), a federal program Georgia chose to opt-out of, providing parents with a $40/mo or $120/year stipend on their EBT/SNAP card. It’s a stipend comparable to the meager amount provided by SNAP, but together, both programs can increase affordability for children’s meals. Public support is strong No Kid Hungry, finds that 82 percent of Georgia residents want the state to opt-in to the program. Doing so would provide children with access to meals even while school is out.
Auto-enrollment, or “linkage” between social services can help reduce administrative burden and complex enrollment paperwork. Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) can all be linked. Those who file for one of the three will be automatically considered for food programs instead of going through an entirely separate process. Those who qualify for one typically qualify for another. Pilot programs in California, Florida, Illinois linking Medicaid to food assistance have already yielded positive results. In the 2019-2020 school year, over 1.2 million additional students were able to receive aid.
And at the grassroots level, programs like Birthday Bundles, mobile pantries, and community fridges act as a safety net that catches kids while policy catches up. The goal should be a system where community organization is a supplement to the solution, not the solution itself.
Critics argue that universal meals or Summer EBT increase government spending, an unpopular action that usually precludes the Georgia Legislature from taking action. However, childhood hunger already carries substantial public costs through poorer health outcomes, lower educational achievement, and reduced lifetime earnings. And Georgia itself is in a budget surplus of over $14.6 Billion sitting in reserves. A fraction of that towards child nutrition would cost far less than allowing hunger to undermine youth health and education.
A cake isn’t enough, but it’s a start
I’ll keep baking birthday cakes because every child deserves to be celebrated, even if it’s just for one day. Celebrations, however, can never act as a substitute for nourishment. Community organizations, as hard as they work, cannot make up for gaps in policy. Georgia’s lawmakers already have the tools at their disposal to reduce child hunger. The question is whether they will use them.
