LINCOLN – Sherry Brooks-Nelson has been very busy in her kitchen preparing chili, spaghetti and meatballs with bell peppers, and even fresh cornbread. The 66-year-old retiree most recently worked as a middle school cafeteria worker, and as the sole provider for her two teenage granddaughters, she doesn’t always have the resources to cook these big meals.

Nebraska’s Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer program, a federal initiative to feed hungry kids during the long summer months, helped Brooks-Nelson and thousands of families that would’ve otherwise gone hungry.

Over the summer, the extra $40 per month per child for three months helped families across the state buy fresh produce they don’t usually have in their grocery budget, such as cabbage, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, apples and bananas.

“We’re able to get some things that we’re not used to eating because we just don’t have the money,” Brooks-Nelson said. “It’s a lot of money for me because I know how to stretch it. We love spinach and cabbage around here.”

But families like Brooks-Nelson’s in Nebraska almost didn’t get summer EBT benefits.

Last December, Nebraska was under the national spotlight when Gov. Jim Pillen rejected $18 million in grocery-buying federal funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help feed low-income Nebraskans, telling the media he didn’t “believe in welfare.” But in February, Pillen changed course after young Nebraskans and state lawmakers from both political parties convinced him to opt into the program.

Pillen’s initial reasoning for not opting into summer EBT was his argument that Nebraska’s Summer Food Service Program, which created a system of sites where children could access free meals, was adequate enough and helped provide important touch points for check-ins with families.

But advocates and lawmakers said it wasn’t enough, including Republican state Sen. Ray Aguilar, who prioritized a bill urging the state to opt into summer EBT. He had heard from former and current school administrators in Grand Island, a city in his district just west of Lincoln, that the area had the highest rate of students eligible for free and reduced lunches in the state.

“They were well aware that in the summertime, without cafeteria service, there’s kids going hungry,” Aguilar told USA TODAY. “That was an important reason, as far as I was concerned. Hearing from them, and coupled with the fact that I don’t want to see any kids go hungry, I thought it was kind of a no-brainer for me to jump on that.”

But more than a dozen states — all with Republican governors — refused the federal funds, including Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, according to the USDA.

According to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, the state distributed about $28 million in summer EBT funding to over 76,000 households.

“Under Governor Pillen’s direction, DHHS successfully developed the “Nebraska way” of implementing the S-EBT program while also identifying additional needs of children and their families through multiple touchpoints,” the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Service said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Eric Savaiano, a program manager at Nebraska Appleseed, a non-profit that advocates for underserved communities, said they heard from families who were “excited” about receiving EBT cards. He noted that while summer meal sites help families while school is out, they aren’t as accessible in the state’s rural areas, and summer EBT helped fill those gaps.

“We’re a very rural state, and it’s hard to go to those summer food service program sites,” Savaiano said. “Although there’s some new options that make it a little bit easier and spreads a bit more of the meals around, this is a program that reaches a ton more kids and can be a real lifeline.”

‘It’s just one thread’

While Nebraska rolled out summer EBT, across the state’s eastern border in the neighboring state of Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds chose not to have the state participate in the program this year, arguing that it was unsustainable and didn’t adequately address the state’s high childhood obesity rates.

“An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,” Reynolds said in a December press release.

Luke Elzinga, chair of the Iowa Hunger Coalition, saw the negative impacts of the decision, with more children using food pantries this summer compared to past years when pandemic benefits were going out.

“In Iowa, we had 245,000 kids who would have qualified for this. It was $29 million in benefits could have gone out, and that certainly would have had an impact,” Elzinga said.

Alicia Christensen, the director of advocacy and policy for Together Omaha, an organization focused on combating homelessness and hunger, said there was a difference in traffic between their food pantry in Omaha, Neb., and their Council Bluffs location right across the border in Iowa.

Christensen noted that although the differences in food pantry usage can’t be attributed to one program, it didn’t hurt to have summer EBT in Nebraska, saying it worked in combination with other food and nutrition programs to help strengthen both food and nutrition security.

“It’s just one thread in different things that make up the whole cloth of that supportive system,” Christensen said. “The school lunch and breakfast program is a component, along with SNAP and WIC. And then summer EBT is just another. The more threads you have woven in there, the stronger it’s going to be, and when you take one of those out, it shifts all those resources downstream.”

Each week during the volleyball season, select coaches from the six Nebraska classes rate the teams in their class and our Tony Chapman compiles the Nebraska high school volleyball coaches poll. Here is the week six poll for the 2024 season.

Class A (Record), Previous

1. Papillon-LaVista South (21-3), 2 
2. Omaha Westside (17-3), 1 
3. Millard West (18-7), 4 
4. Lincoln Southwest (12-6), 3
5. Elkhorn South (18-7), 5
6. Millard North (13-9), 6
7. Grand Island (18-6), 7 
8. Fremont (19-3), 8
9. Omaha Marian (13-11), 10 
10. Lincoln North Star (13-11), 9

Receiving Votes: Columbus (17-6), NR; Millard South (12-14), NR.

Class B (Record), Previous

1. Skutt Catholic (19-6), 1
2. Norris (23-1), 2
3. Elkhorn North (18-6), 3
4. Waverly (20-6), 5 
5. Bennington (13-7), 6
6. Gretna East (22-6), 4 
7. Seward (19-3), 7
8. Lincoln Pius X (10-19), 10 
9. Gretna (18-13), 8
10. Northwest (18-8), 9

Receiving Votes: Gering (15-11), NR; York (16-7), RV.

Class C-1 (Record), Previous

1. Minden (25-0), 1
2. Clarkson/Leigh (21-2), 3 
3. Pierce (17-4), 4
4. Columbus Scotus (16-4), 2
5. Battle Creek (18-5), 8 
6. Kearney Catholic (14-4), 7 
7. Laurel-Concord-Coleridge (19-2), RV
8. Columbus Lakeview (13-7), 5 
9. David City (15-7), 6
10. Holdrege (12-2), 9 

Receiving Votes: Milford (12-5), 10; Ogallala (18-5), NR; Wahoo (12-6), RV. 

Class C-2 (Record), Previous

1. Lincoln Lutheran (20-2), 1
2. Yutan (20-0), 2
3. Freeman (20-1), 3 
4. Oakland-Craig (21-4), 4 
5. Norfolk Catholic (16-3), 7 
6. Thayer Central (17-0), 5 
7. Hastings St. Cecilia (19-4), 8 
8. Humphrey/Lindsay Academy (20-3), 6
9. Bishop Neumann (15-8), 10 
10. Crofton (14-5), 9

Receiving Votes: none.

Class D-1 (Record), Previous

1. Southwest (21-0), 1
2. Superior (19-5), 2
3. Bruning-Davenport/Shickley (12-3), 3 
4. Kenesaw (18-5), 5
5. Howells-Dodge (14-6), 6 
6. Brady, (14-6), 4 
7. Diller-Odell (13-8), 8 
8. Tri-County (16-8), 9 
9. Ansley-Litchfield (15-6), 7 
10. Nebraska Christian (13-8), NR

Receiving Votes: Alma (16-7), RV; Burwell (10-8), NR; Weeping Water (14-9), NR. 

Class D-2 (Record), Previous

1. Shelton (18-2), 2 
2. Leyton (24-0), 3 
3. Overton (18-4), 1
4. Central Valley (12-4), 4 
5. Amherst (17-5), 6 
6. Sumner-Eddyville-Miller (15-4), 5
7. Stuart (18-3), 8 
8. Meridian (11-5), 7
9. Loomis (14-6), 9
10. St. Mary’s (12-3), NR

Receiving votes: Wynot (9-6), 10.

Nebraska head football coach met with the media Monday for what will probably be the only time during the Huskers’ off week. He discussed the state of the team at midseason, Saturday’s win against Rutgers, the upcoming game against unbeaten Indiana, and a lot more. Below are Kaleb Henry’s notes, and above is the video of Monday’s half-hour session.

• Did a normal Monday. Will practice Tuesday through Thursday then be off through Sunday.
• Happy with the turnover margin. *a couple of false starts on this presser because of reporters’ phones falling lol*
• Being a physical team is a work in progress
• Against Illinois, got caught looking at the scoreboard instead of just playing
• Culture of execution, in terms of penalties, would like to see improve. Especially pre-snap penalties and personal fouls and such. Drawing a lot of penalties too.
• Special teams is a tale of two things: punts landing inside the 10, fake a punt, stop a fake…but giving up blocked kicks and punts.
• Run game offensively “is not where it needs to be”
• A lot of things to work on. Doing a good job self-scouting right now.
• Riley Van Poppel played on Saturday, something that was planned ahead of time.
• Some potential redshirt guys have played 2 or 3 games already.
• James Williams impacted the game against Rutgers after the tough decision to redshirt last year.
• Dylan Raiola “has been great”. Has had some wow moments.
• Was hard to get into a rhythm offensively with starting field position in the second half, though that’s not an excuse.
• Not just a “do your job guy”. “Do your job AND go make a play”.
• Guys on offense need to do better at not getting tackled. “Those 12 yards runs have to start being 50 yard runs”
• Ceyair Wright “has done an excellent job”
• Goal line stand was “good calls by Tony (White) with great plays by players”
• Not sure of the rotation for DBs if/when Tommi Hill is good to return.
• Isaac Gifford blocked the wrong guy on the first blocked punt.
• Personal protector missed a block on the second blocked punt.
• Wishes he had done the fake punt earlier.
• One of the best things Rhule has ever seen is Brian Buschini struggling through pain but getting throws in during halftime in advance of the fake punt.
• “That last punt was as big a play as I’ve been a part of”
• Fake punt was a call and not a decision by the punt team in the moment.
• Tristan Alvano is beginning the phase of testing where he’s at for health and returning.
• Blye Hill is set to play four of the final six games to hold onto his redshirt. A good backup if Tommi can’t go and Ceyair would be out.
• Heinrich Haarberg needs to play more. The challenge in getting Haarberg in more and getting him the ball is having so many talented players on offense.
• Not surprised by the 6-0 start for Indiana.
• Brought over a lot of guys who know how to win with new coaching staff. Already had some good players there.
• “You would have never though Alabama would have lost to Vandy”
• The transfer portal has changed the game on who can have success.
• Great teams of the ’90s and 2000s were stacked with talent. That talent is being spread out a little more with the portal and NIL.
• No one has talked with Rhule about wanting to redshirt and hit the portal.
• Ty Robinson is a force this year because of his development. Allows him to be out there for multiple different packages.
• “I still wake up at night upset we lost to Illinois”
• Proud of the work and growth by the team through the first half of the season.
• Rare for Rhule to have the team with two tackling days during the week, something they did last week ahead of Rutgers.
• James Williams can be anyone he wants to be. “My kids love him; my dogs love him”
• Terrance Knighton has done a good job of building a room of camaraderie.
• Won’t do much recruiting during the off week. Going to do more on the second off week.
• “I’m a button pusher, no doubt.”
• Unbelievably physical in the spring and training camp and then apprehension in season about player load.
• “In order to play great defense you have to practice great defense.”
• Not allowed to quit. You can lose, don’t want to lose, but people aren’t paying to watch the team lie down.
• No thinking with pregame physicality drills. It’s just about coming together and celebrating the team being physical.
• Happy for Micah Mazzccua getting in and playing well. Can be whatever he wants to be but has to stay focused day by day.

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