As a school psychologist, therapist, and mother living in Bethlehem, I see everyday how policy decisions in Washington affect our community – especially in the lives of our children. I work with students from kindergarten through fifth grade across three elementary schools. Thanks to the program I’m part of, kids can receive therapy. I meet with them in offices provided by the schools. It’s a lifeline for them, and often, for their families.
These kids are incredible. At just five to eleven years old, they already want to change the world. But the world, in turn, is not meeting them halfway.
At one of the schools I cover, approximately 70% of kids qualify for free and reduced lunch. At another, it’s 80%. And the third, it’s 90%. Many of my students have SNAP benefits. Some mornings, the line for the school’s food pantry stretches around the building. Their families are doing everything they can. Many parents are working multiple jobs, paying into a system that promises with all the taxes paid, when families are in need, the programs will be available. There is not enough available now and Republicans are threatening to take the little these families have. It is stealing from the poor to give it to the rich.
This May, Republicans in Congress plan to vote on a budget that will cut SNAP benefits of over 40 million Americans. These are not abstract cuts. They are direct hits to the lives of the kids I work with. In response, people in our community have been rallying at Representative Ryan Mackenzie’s district office, urging him to vote no on SNAP and Medicaid cuts that will hurt our children. I join them – and for the sake of these beautiful, resilient kids, I’m begging him to do the right thing.
These children may not fully understand the politics at play, but they do understand the struggle. I’ve had eight and nine year olds ask me how they can help the family make money because they see their moms working so hard yet it’s never enough and they are afraid. I hear the pressure in their voices. The systems that are supposed to support them are being stripped away while billionaires continue to get richer. And we’re told, “it’s only going to hurt for a little bit.” But who does it hurt? Whose children? Billionaire’s children? Or only ours? Whose children are Trump and Elon okay with inflicting pain upon? For the communities I grew up in, we stand in front of kids and protect them, we are not billionaires that focus on money and forget people. We stand up for people. We are the people.
In a moment when groceries prices are soaring, and global trade is unpredictable, how can we put the burden on children? Why are they the ones to foot the bill while the wealthiest Americans get richer through tax breaks?
This is not the America I was raised in. I was taught to support my neighbors. To bring a casserole over, to step in when they need a babysitter. How can we help? That’s how my parents raised me, and that’s the spirit we must return to now.
We need to think deeper. We need to care harder. We need to recognize that my children – and the children in every classroom in NEPA – matter just as any other child in this country. That’s why I, along with pastors, special education teachers, and so many others, will keep showing up at town halls and community meetings. We will keep making noise.
Because taking care of each other should be the American way. The proposed cuts to SNAP and Medicaid do the opposite. They abandon the most vulnerable – our kids – and benefit those who already have everything. But Representative Mackenzie has a choice. He has the power to help stop this.
I call on him now: Vote no on cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. Do it for my students. Do it for your constituents. Do it for the future of our children.
