By Rep. Stephan Bunker
With the holiday season upon us, I hope you get to enjoy gathering with family and friends for Christmas, New Year’s and other festivities in the coming weeks.
This year, I know the holidays may be particularly challenging for many in our community. The rising cost of living is continuing to strain family budgets, in turn making it harder for working families to make ends meet. Many are having a hard time affording groceries and putting food on the table.
In the Legislature, we have been working to combat hunger, especially among our youth. Across the state, nearly 192,000 Mainers are still struggling to access enough food, including over 50,000 children.
To help address this, we extended funding this year for universal breakfast and lunch for all K-12 students in Maine’s public schools. For many kids, these are the only certain meals they’ll receive in a day. No child should have to learn on an empty stomach, and these measures will help our students succeed.
We also doubled Maine’s Child Tax Credit to $600 per child for children under six, for families earning under $150,000 per year. This will put money directly back into the pockets of working families in Farmington and Chesterville and help lower rates of hunger and child poverty. But we still have a long way to go to end food insecurity in Maine.
Unfortunately, the recent federal government shutdown that ended last month created significant chaos and confusion around the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is the nation’s largest food assistance program. Here in Maine, roughly 33% of households receiving SNAP benefits have children. Federal funding for this anti-hunger program that puts food on the table for Mainers was being used for political games.
I believe we should be doing more – not less – to ensure that Mainers don’t have to worry about where their next meal will come from. That will be a focal point for me in my work in Augusta when the Legislature reconvenes for the upcoming session in January.
If you are struggling to afford the cost of groceries, please know that there are resources to help. Our local food pantry, The Care and Share Food Closet, is available to those that need it. You have to apply for assistance, which you can do here. You can also give them a call at (207) 778-0508 or email them at careandsharefoodcloset@gmail.com.
If you’re interested in volunteering with the pantry, you can apply here. Additionally, if you’re able, please consider donating this holiday season. I feel incredibly grateful to represent two communities that always come together to help our friends and neighbors in need.
As always, please feel free to contact me at Stephan.Bunker@legislature.maine.gov with any questions or concerns you may have. I am here to serve you, and I can do that best by hearing directly from you. I will always fight for families in Farmington and Chesterville.
Rep. Bunker is serving his first term in the Maine House of Representatives and serves on both the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee and the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee. He represents House District 75, which includes Farmington and Chesterville.