Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, said three states and two tribal governments would get more than $27 million to fund demonstration projects to provide food to children and their families, including projects that would provide home delivery of food or meals to children on weekends.
The projects will be tested in Kentucky, Nevada and Virginia, as well as in the Chickasaw and Navajo tribal nations.
“These projects are a continuation of the administration’s efforts to help people get back to work and earn enough to take care of their families, and reach kids in high-poverty rural areas,” Mr. Vilsack said in an interview.
Despite an uptick in the economy in recent years, rural areas continue to lag behind, and children are hit especially hard. Approximately 6.1 million children live in poverty in rural areas, and 90 percent of counties with the highest level of child poverty are in rural areas, census data shows. Nearly 40 percent of Native American children live in poverty, the data shows.
