Press Releases

 – Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA),  and Representatives James P. McGovern (MA-02), Richard E. Neal (MA-01), Stephen F. Lynch (MA-08), William Keating (MA-09), Joseph P. Kennedy III (MA-04), Katherine Clark (MA-05), Seth Moulton (MA-06), and Lori Trahan (MA-03) hailed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) decision to extend school nutrition waivers that were set to expire on August 31st through December 2020. The waivers allow school districts and community organizations the flexibility to provide students nutritious meals at convenient locations, and have been vital in preventing a surge in childhood hunger amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier this summer, the entire Massachusetts Congressional delegation sent a letter to the USDA urging the agency to extend the waivers for the entire 2020-21 school year. Reps. Pressley, Lynch and Senators Warren, Markey and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh reiterated these calls in statements issued last month.

At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in March, Rep. Pressley and the entire Massachusetts delegation successfully urged the USDA to enact school nutrition waivers to ensure no student lost access to nutritious meals when schools shifted to remote learning.  In July, Reps. Pressley and McGovern led more than 20 lawmakers from across the Northeast in calling on the USDA to equitably distribute relief funding meant to prevent food insecurity.

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