A bill aimed at tackling student hunger on college campuses has passed its first Florida House committee. It would set up a yearlong pilot program to study the issue.
Florida’s agriculture commissioner would pick the three state universities or colleges most at risk of student hunger to participate in the program. These schools will be chosen because they have the highest percentage of Pell grant-eligible students.
Then his department would help those schools set up a hunger task force, enroll students in food benefits, and establish a food pantry on campus, among other activities.
State Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis, D-Ocoee, voted to approve the bill, known as House Bill 1245. She said she’d like to see the program extended to all of Florida’s institutions of higher learning.
“Hope in the future, after this bill passes and you get some great data that you will look to expand this bill further than three schools. Students can't learn if they are hungry,” Bracy Davis said.
State Representative Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, also voted to approve the bill in its first Florida House committee. She said so much research points to the correlation between being full and being able to perform better in school and in life.
“This is going to help our students succeed and improve their scores, right? When you're full, you good. When you hungry, you hangry, and you just, you know, argumentative and all the things and can't learn and process,” Nixon said.
The bill, which has bipartisan support, has a companion bill, Senate Bill 980, which is in its second committee. If approved, the pilot program would begin on July 1, 2025, and end the following year.
A report on the program’s findings about college student hunger and the best practices to mitigate it would be due to the governor, the president of the Senate and Speaker of the House by Jan. 1, 2027.
Here’s what the bill requires the Florida Department of Agriculture and the three colleges to achieve over the course of the yearlong pilot:
- Set up a hunger task force to set two goals to address student hunger
- Pick a staff member who will help students enroll in SNAP food benefits
- Make it easier for students to use SNAP benefits at college campus retailers or provide a list of retailers that accept SNAP-EBT cards
- Host an activity or event on campus during Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week
- Establish at least one food pantry for students on campus
- Set up a way that students can donate unused meal credits to their peers
- Conduct a student hunger survey and create a profile of best practices to alleviate student hunger specific to each campus
According to the National Institutes of Health, 36% of college students in the United States are food-insecure.
In Central Florida, the University of Central Florida, Bethune-Cookman University, and Seminole State College have established on-campus food pantries where students can get free food with no questions asked.
The pilot program comes as the Trump administration has slashed $1 billion in funding for U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that provided food to students and food banks.
The administration has also said it will cut $1 trillion in funding for SNAP and Medicaid programs.
In a statement the Florida Policy Institute, a nonpartisan but progressive think tank said, “the cuts would put health care access and food security at risk for Floridians across the state, including seniors, children, and working families.”
Read the full bill here:
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