Anti-hunger advocates say the Healthy Kids Iowa program, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ summer nutrition program created to replace Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer, was burdensome and ineffective at reaching families who needed assistance.

Reynolds announced earlier this year that the partnership between the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services would allocate $900,000 to provide Iowa children with healthy food options over the summer.

Healthy Kids Iowa  provided families  $40 worth of food once a month. To qualify for the program, the Iowa household must meet the federal poverty level of 185 percent or below and have children ages 4-18.

The pilot program has concluded after being announced in May 2025 that it would replace Summer EBT.

A press release announced Reynolds had rejected the federal funds for Summer EBT in December, a program that allows eligible families to receive $40 per month per child to help with food costs during the summer months.

“Our goal has always been to ensure all Iowa children have access to nutritious, balanced, and wholesome food, while promoting healthy eating habits,” Reynolds said in the release.

Executive Director of Coralville Community Pantry John Boller said while many families were grateful for the program, he has had his own criticisms since the start.

“[Reynolds] felt we needed a separate program that actually made healthy foods available to kids,” Boller said. “It kind of insinuates that parents who received these cards weren’t making healthy food choices for their kiddos.”

Logistical challenges complicate the program

Kim Guardado, food reservoir director at Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, or HACAP — one of six food banks that received the allocation of funding to implement the program in eastern Iowa — said the families didn’t have much of a choice.

“As a food bank, it’s difficult for us to meet the needs of all different kinds of cultural foods or food allergies,” Guardado said. “Families just didn’t get the choices we would prefer.”

Boller said the implementation of Healthy Kids Iowa added to how incredibly busy food pantries and other food access organizations are.

“We were tasked with this essentially impossible challenge of making sure this program was [executed] with zero heads up,” he said.

Organizations were told in May this program would begin, giving them a few weeks to plan and order enough nonperishables and fresh food for families.

Alongside being time-and resource-intensive, Boller said Healthy Kids Iowa, if it were to reach everyone they were hoping to — roughly 2,200 kids — would only serve 30 percent of  those that Summer EBT served.

While having reached a peak of serving 1,200 kids in Iowa City in July, pantries had to turn down food donations throughout the summer due to lack of storage. Because of this, they decided to do a once-a-month standalone distribution at a rotating location in the county where some families went home empty-handed.

“We had our best people on it,” Boller said. “[We had] so many incredible partnerships with local cities. They worked incredibly hard and provided volunteers and staffing equipment.”

Throughout the summer, Boller heard repeatedly it was hard for families to plan around the distributions due to them happening one day a month, and the amount of food became overwhelming for people to take home.

Guardado said HACAP allowed a proxy to pick up food for families. She said families were able to obtain more food than they would have with EBT, but that could cause some issues.

If the family has five children, they receive five boxes of food. Some families don’t have fridge space for that product which brought Boller to think  this wouldn’t have happened with an EBT card since it would allow families to pace the way that they purchase food.

Another critique from Boller was  families had to wait in line in a car to acquire food.

“We feel awful because that’s not the way that we believe people should be treated,” Boller said. “It lacks dignity, it lacks choice.”

He said families deserve the right to make decisions about the food that they take home.

“Reynolds said no to this original program in hopes that families would have access to all these healthy foods. She said they would have a choice. Nobody had choices. Just a set menu of items. Here’s what you get,” Boller said. “So, if they were to do it again, I will say, very begrudgingly, we would much, much, much rather just move forward with Summer EBT.”

Guardado said families are still going to struggle, and some policy changes need to be put into effect to help families make ends meet, and, at the same time, understand how they can provide food for those who are in need.

‘It’s a drop in the bucket’

While Guardado had issues with the program, she said Healthy Kids Iowa brought partners together and HACAP worked hard to make it as successful as possible.

“I just want to acknowledge all of the partners who took time and effort to help out with this project over the summer,” she said. “We appreciate that so much that we recognize all the efforts everybody put into making this happen.”

Boller said they wanted some food versus no food, but the need is so much greater.

“It’s a drop in the bucket,” he said.

Annette Hacker, chief communication and strategy officer at Food Bank of Iowa — one of Iowa’s six Feeding America food banks — is happy with the outcome of Healthy Kids Iowa.

“The Healthy Kids Iowa pilot program has put more food on the table for Iowa kids this summer,” Hacker wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan. “Food Bank of Iowa sourced and delivered more than a million pounds of food just for Healthy Kids Iowa. We look forward to sharing feedback with Iowa HHS and the governor in the coming days.”

While other organizations may be able to see more positives with Healthy Kids Iowa, Boller stands strong with his discontent toward the program.

“Despite all that incredible effort, it still didn’t reach the kids that would have just simply received a Summer EBT card through the original program,” he said. “Incredibly frustrating, as you might imagine.”