It is very important you tell your friends and family about the P-EBT program for school children who receive free and reduced-rate breakfast and lunch at a community-eligible school district. This is a one-time money distribution that comes from the Cares Act, and it expires June 12.

If a child received the food during the school year and you have not moved, the parent will receive $365 per child. If the family has moved during the year and has not told the school district of a new address, contact your school district or visit the COMPASS website at compass.state.pa.us.

If you already receive SNAP (also known as food stamps), TANF cash assistance or Medical Assistance, your benefits will be added to your EBT card within approximately 15 days. If you don’t receive these benefits, a P-EBT card will be mailed to you with instructions.

If you live in a community-eligible district but your family doesn’t need the benefits, it’s important to know all students will receive the benefit. The benefit is good for six months, and your family may need them at a future time. Contact your school to apply with a correct current address. You may also apply online through COMPASS’ website. This expires June 12.

Also, with SNAP, many people do not know they may qualify even though they own a home and/or a car. If you lost your job or had your hours reduced and you live paycheck to paycheck, you probably qualify for SNAP. There are certain additional deductions from income allowed. I encourage people to visit compass.state.pa.us/Compass.Web/Screening/DoIQualify#/SelectBenefits. If you need assistance, you can apply by phone through the Pennsylvania SNAP hotline at 1-800-692-7462. SNAP does not have an expiration date.

The reason I bring both of these programs back up today is because at both our Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative distributions May 21, we passed out fliers on both of these programs and explained what they were about. Even with all the publicity out there, many of our guests did not know about the two programs.

We encouraged our guests to tell their friends and neighbors. They did, and in Coplay Borough, we added 16 new households, including four senior households, to our food distribution. They were so grateful their friends told them. One guest told me she is really struggling since losing her job in March and didn’t know about us or SNAP. She couldn’t thank us enough. Whitehall Township also added more senior households.

In addition, we noticed a reduction of registered guests attending the May 21 distribution at both sites, but at the same time, we also added new guests. Whitehall served 99 adults, 32 seniors and 116 children to 67 households. Coplay served 103 adults, 35 seniors and 86 children to 69 households. We served a total of 471 people May 21. Everyone was so kind and appreciative.

Items needed for our June 4 distribution include - for children’s bags: individual oatmeal packs and individual macaroni and cheese; for adult/senior bags: pancake mix, Hamburger/Tuna Helper and pasta/rice sides.

We will accept other food items, but we need these specific items to have all our distribution bags ready by June 1.

The room our pantry is in at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church will be a voting location June 2. We need to relocate our items to another area of the church for that day. I will ask you for more food items next week.

Thank you all for your food and monetary donations. For questions, call or text me at 610-730-8067 or email me at shari@sharinoctor.com.

Have a great week!