And that poses a big problem not only for many other factors but for families who rely on free or discounted school meals for their Children.

Celebrity chef and owner of crafted hospitality Tom Colicchio is here with more on that Tom, Thanks for being here.

This is such an interesting angle that a lot of people probably don't think about.

But I find it interesting that you were scheduled to speak at South by Southwest about universal access to school lunches.

The event gets canceled because of this virus, but this virus seems to have made this issue even more important, right?

Yeah, that's that panel discussion with Food Court was really about this.

The quality of lunches and ah, um, sort of looking at How do you get more nourishment into school lunches?

This is a whole different issue.

Currently, there are 30 million Children that used our school, our public school lunch system.

22 million are on free of reduced lunch.

So these kids, if if we continue to see, uh, this disease continue to spread on dhe schools are closed down families that rely on their kids getting breakfast and lunch.

These programs are not going to feed their Children.

And we know that good nutrition is also part of staying healthy.

And we eat our kids healthiest possible.

Offend this off.

And so how do you do that?

Well, right now in the snap program, there is no mechanism to increase the amount of benefits that you receive.

There's disaster relief in disaster aid, which loosens restrictions so more people can receive snap.

But there's currently no mechanism to actually increase the amount of dollars the dollars needed to offset breakfast and lunch.

And so there is a bill right now is part of the Democrats House bill that actually provides nutrition in this case and increases not benefits.

Um, I just before I came on air, I read that Senator McConnell leader McConnell said he will not take this bill up.

He's going on vacation, is going on recess.

And so I think right now this is where we need leadership.

We need leadership from our elected officials to constant of, to focus on this issue and make sure that the most vulnerable people in our society are not gonna really, really pay the price here.

What would you like to see from government?

What's the fix here both from the government?

And can private sector companies step in to help is, Well, I don't I don't think so.

This is This is an issue that's way too big for a charitable response.

Yes, their heart, their the USDA has loosened restrictions on community feeding.

That's great, but But until the outbreak is so great that number one volunteers won't be able to go there.

Plus, we're trying to avoid people in areas where there, there, there's a lot of people.

And so these community feeding centers, where there could be thousands of people, it's not the best way to go about this.

People need money so they could go shopping, and they need.

They need money in their accounts so they can actually get ahead of this taken, stock their shelves and get ready for what's about to come.

And what's your advice for families who are dealing with those families who have food security concerns.

Is there anything they can do right now?

Or people around them that might want to help?

What's your advice to them?

I think my advice right now.

And this is gonna sound, you know, I'm gonna try.

But Cole, your representative right now, tell the past this Bill, get on the phone toe leader McConnell and tell him not to go on vacation.

I mean, this is This is where citizens need to stand on the demand of their government, respond and react.

And this isn't gonna You can't wait for for this to come from the top down.

This is where citizens need to step up and make sure that we're protecting most general people.

Well, we've done a great job of shredding our social safety net the last 2030 years.

This is where we're going to see that this idea of shrinking government down to the size that it could be drowned in a bathtub is not working.

We need a massive government response to this.

All right.

Tom Colicchio.

Thanks for calling our attention to an issue.

A lot of people probably don't realize it's happening.

We get it.

Thank you.

And that will do it for us today.

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