COLUMBIA, S.C. — Millions of dollars in unused South Carolina pandemic food benefits could begin to expire in May.
The funds — known as the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer, or P-EBT — were sent to thousands of South Carolina public school families in several rounds over the past four years. They’re intended to help cover costs for meals that would ordinarily be provided at school.
The cards provide $120 per child and can be used to buy groceries at any retailer accepting debit cards for SNAP. If a child was approved for free or reduced-price meals at the end of the 2022-2023 school year they are eligible.
P-EBT benefits automatically expire 274 days, or about nine months, after they were last used. That means that cards that went out in the mail on August 14, 2023 – the expiration date is May 14th.
If families make a $1 purchase or larger, they get another 274 days from that point.
DSS and the State Department of Education jointly administered the P-EBT program in South Carolina.
According to the state Department of Social Services, over 68,000 cards have yet to be activated, potentially leaving $8.1 million unspent.
“One out of five kids are at risk of going hungry or are going hungry and so we want to make sure that people maximize all resources that are available for them,” said Sue Berkowitz with the SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center.
Berkowitz said there are several reasons the money isn’t unspent including families losing their cards, not wanting the aid, or not understanding what they got in the mail. She added that other cards could have been sent to the wrong address.
“There's always going to be some folks, unfortunately, and I'm not saying it's right, but some people fall through the cracks,” said Berkowitz.
For each round of P-EBT, DSS opened the Address Verification portal on its website for several weeks to encourage address verification.
Cards that couldn’t be delivered were returned to the vendor contracted to process them. In all, 8,435 cards over the last four years were re-issued, according to DSS data
The State Department of Education told News 19 they sent various memorandums to school districts about the program and made social media posts on various platforms. They also hosted a webinar with school administrators about the program.
Many individual schools put out messages to their parents about the P-EBT program, too.
2.26 million cards providing $1.04 billion worth of grocery aid have been sent to South Carolina families. 90% of them were activated, according to DSS data.
“We should all admire everybody who are utilizing any kind of resource that's available to help their kids,” said Berkowitz.
More information about the program can be found online through the Department of Social Services.
What’s concerning for Berkowitz is that the expiration comes as South Carolina is among 15 states that opted out of a permanent federal summer food benefits program.
“They should be very concerned when there are children going hungry during the summer. because kids going hungry means the kids are not doing their best and every child should be given the opportunity to do their best” said Berkowitz.
Berkowitz said she and her team will push for McMaster to opt in for the next deadline, which is Jan. 1, 2025.