Parents are struggling to get their hands on P-EBT cardsįallion Wade, a single mother in Memphis, is among the parents who have applied and been approved for the program but are awaiting a card in the mail.
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Lee spokesperson Gillum Ferguson on Wednesday said the governor's office supports keeping the current application system in place. The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment about the program. The United Way, Second Harvest Food Bank, Mid-South Food Bank and other nonprofits have joined the Tennessee Justice Center and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition in urging the state to make the process easier for families to receive the additional food money before time runs out. DHS has denied around 850 applications for P-EBT. Of the 388,000 Tennessee children eligible to receive the funds who are not on SNAP or TANF, only 139,000, or 35%, have been approved. "When we're citing Mississippi, Alabama, the Carolinas, this is just something that’s completely difficult to understand," Bonnyman said, referring to states the advocacy group has pointed to as examples of those not requiring an additional application process for families to receive the funds. Bill Lee and Tennessee's human services and education commissioners asking them to change the process. "It's just difficult to understand why we have this problem that other states don’t have," said Gordon Bonnyman, attorney for the Tennessee Justice Center, which is one of 15 organizations that signed a letter July 1 to Gov. Additional families will likely apply for P-EBT by mid-August. 14 for families to apply for P-EBT.īased on how many eligible families have not yet applied to receive the money, as much as $62 million worth of benefits won't be distributed in Tennessee.
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The department, however, has set a deadline of Aug. 30 to distribute the funds, per Congress. The Tennessee Department of Human Services, which is handling applications for the program, has until Sept. Due to challenges the state has faced getting the parents of all 388,000 children who aren't on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or TANF but are on reduced lunch to apply for the P-EBT program, Tennessee is on track to leave roughly $60 million in federal funds on the table.