Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
A fairgoer holds a Mississippi state flag during the Neshoba County Fair on Wednesday, July 31, 2019.
The president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, the state’s teachers union and powerful education lobby, asked teachers across the state to call lawmakers and demand they change the state flag, the last in the nation containing the Confederate battle emblem.
Erica Jones, president of the association, sent an email early Thursday morning to the organization’s thousands of members asking them to “call your state representative and state senator and ask them to support suspending the rules to allow for a bill to change the flag to be considered.”
The call to action comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers, with House Speaker Philip Gunn’s blessing, is whipping votes and drafting a resolution that would change the state flag.
“Educators are charged with ensuring our students feel safe, cared for, and protected in their schools. That is a daunting task under the best of circumstances,” Jones wrote in the email, which was also posted to the organization’s Facebook page. “When there is a racist relic of the past flying above our schools, it is simply not possible to say we are fulfilling that duty. We would never stand for displaying a symbol of hatred inside of our classrooms. Why should we tolerate it outside of our school buildings, next to the doors our students walk through each and every day?”
Jones continued: “As any of us would tell our students: don’t be a bystander. Be an upstander. If you know something is wrong, speak up. Don’t stand idly by while people are hurting. That’s why we’re calling on lawmakers to do the right thing by speaking up for all of Mississippi’s students and taking down the state flag.”
Mississippi Today reported on Tuesday that several House Republicans and Democrats met behind closed doors to discuss changing the state flag. After later meeting with Gunn, who supports changing the flag, the group began drafting a resolution that would replace the current state flag with the Stennis flag, a design that has gained momentum in recent years.
The conversation behind closed doors this week marks one of the first earnest legislative discussions about changing the state flag since the 2001 referendum in which Mississippians voted nearly 2-to-1 to keep the current flag. It also comes as tens of thousands of black Mississippians and their multi-racial allies march the streets to protest racial inequalities in government.
The Mississippi Association of Educators, one of the most powerful lobbies in the state, putting its weight behind the legislative effort is notable as lawmakers working to change the flag need to garner commitments from at least 35 Republican House members.
House leaders told Mississippi Today on Wednesday that they received private commitments to change the flag from “about 20” Republican House members. “About 20 more” Republicans are on the fence, said Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader from Natchez.
The teachers association has successfully swayed votes of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on key pieces of legislation in recent years. Lawmakers routinely work to satisfy the organization’s policy wishes in efforts to avoid becoming inundated with communications from public school teachers across the state.
Lawmakers this week said they had already been bombarded with calls and emails from Mississippians about changing the flag. Jones’ call to action on Thursday will likely exacerbate that reality.
“It is our duty as educators to continue standing up for our students and advocating for what we know to be right,” Jones wrote. “Changing the flag is not a partisan issue. This is a matter of right and wrong. This flag is wrong, and it’s time to take it down.”
It will be perfect weather to get outside today through the weekend, whether in the yard, at the Tennessee-Tombigbee River, or by the pool. 😎 The UV heat index is high, so be sure to use sunscreen and have an awesome weekend everyone!!
FRIDAY: Sunny, with a high near 89. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Clear, with a low around 64. North northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.
SATURDAY: Sunny, with a high near 89. North northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Clear, with a low around 62. North northeast wind around 5 mph.
SUNDAY: Sunny, with a high near 86. North northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.
SUNDAY NIGHT: Clear, with a low around 59. North northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.
Ed’e Laws puts finishing touches on Eric Mathis’ haircut at the Hairshow Barbershop in Ridgeland, Miss., on Monday, May 18, 2020.
Thousands of small business owners in Mississippi can apply for grants up to $25,000 for expenses they incurred in the coronavirus pandemic starting at noon on Thursday.
“The pandemic was not just a public health emergency,” Gov. Tate Reeves said Wednesday, announcing the start of taking applications for the grants. “It plunged our country into the greatest job losses we’ve seen since the Great Depression.”
The grant program will go live Thursday, with applications and information available at the website backtobusinessms.org.
Meanwhile, the state continues to cut checks of $2,000 in coronavirus relief to small businesses and as of Wednesday had sent 10,797 checks totaling nearly $22 million.
Lawmakers earmarked up to $60 million for $2,000 checks for the estimated 29,000 small businesses closed by the governor’s stay-at-home orders. No application is required for this relief.
The Legislature allocated $240 million for the reimbursement grants of up to $25,000 for companies of 50 employees or less. The grants are for companies owned or controlled by Mississippians, and first priority will be given to those that have not received money from the federal coronavirus Paycheck Protection Program.
The grants are for expenses such as mortgage, rent, payroll, utilities and pandemic-related expenses. Under the CARES Act, the grant cannot cover lost revenue. The Mississippi Development Authority is handling the grant applications.
Spending of the state’s federal CARES Act money caused a brief power struggle between the Legislature and Reeves, with legislative leaders saying they control the state’s purse strings and Reeves saying he controls federal disaster funds in an emergency. The Legislature won out and passed the small business relief last month.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has said Mississippi was one of the first states to allocate money to help small businesses through the CARES Act.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Philip Gunn said he was pleased to hear the grant applications were going live Thursday and that the $2,000 checks have been going out.
“I sent MDA a letter two weeks ago, urging that they act swiftly,” Gunn said. “Last week, I met with them and they said they were on the verge of having the portal ready … It appears they are on schedule with what they said they would do.”
Reeves said the next step state leaders need to take to help small businesses is to use about $500 million from CARES Act money to replenish the state’s unemployment trust fund, depleted by coronavirus unemployment that stands at about 15 percent currently. Not doing so would result in huge tax increases for Mississippi businesses, Reeves said.
Outside Reeves’ press conference on Wednesday in downtown Jackson, bar and nightclub owners and workers and musicians rallied, calling for Reeves to lift the 10 p.m. curfew on such businesses.
Melissa Kirksey, owner of BB’s Live in Brandon, was among the two dozen or so protesting. She said businesses relying on live entertainment have been devastated: “We would like to know why we can’t go back to work like everyone else.”
They were in luck. Reeves, who said he did not know who the protesters outside were, announced removal of the curfew on Wednesday.
Reeves also issued a new executive order calling for all state, local and municipal government employees to return to work by July 1. His order put a “sunset” on all administrative leave for government employees.
Eric J. SheltonEric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
A fairgoer holds a Mississippi State flag during the Neshoba County Fair on Wednesday, July 31, 2019.
Speaker of the House Philip Gunn said on Wednesday that some legislators are “looking at what can be done” to change the Mississippi state flag, the last in the nation containing the Confederate battle emblem.
Gunn, who has long been one of the few Republican state leaders who has said the flag should change, said that changing the flag this late in the legislative session will be difficult.
“It would require a lot of work,” Gunn said. “I tell people you need to remember it’s a two-thirds vote.”
After Mississippi Today reported on Tuesday that a bipartisan group of House members began whipping votes and drafting legislation to remove the current state flag, lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol dome scrambled to learn more about the discussions occurring behind closed doors.
Because key legislative deadlines have passed this session, any flag change would require a two-thirds vote of both the House (80 of 120 members) and the Senate (34 of 52 members) to suspend the rules to allow a bill to change the flag to be considered. That threshold would likely require a little fewer than 40 Republicans to be on board with changing the flag — a difficult number to reach, Gunn and other lawmakers acknowledged.
Rep. Robert Johnson of Natchez, the House Democratic leader, said most of his 45 members would vote to change the flag. He said the bipartisan group’s goal is to convince about 40 of the Republican House members to join the effort to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to change the flag.
The House consists of 73 Republicans, 45 Democrats, two independents. There are two current vacancies from Republican-leaning districts.
“There are about 20 Republicans we believe would quietly vote right now to change the flag,” Johnson said. “We believe there are 20 more who are on the fence.”
Whether they can get most of those 20 off the fence most likely will determine whether Gunn lets the issue onto the floor for a vote. Gunn told the bipartisan group of lawmakers he was open to pushing the issue to the floor if yea votes were committed.
After the Mississippi Today article published on Tuesday, lawmakers have been inundated with correspondence from the public.
When Gunn began presiding over the House on Wednesday morning, his cellphone indicated he had a little fewer than 200 new emails. By the time he left the speaker’s podium less than 90 minutes later, his phone was showing 582 new emails.
He said most of the emails were about changing the state flag — an issue that “generates a lot of passion,” Gunn said.
Emails about the flag have been “coming in so fast you can’t read them,” said Rep. Randall Patterson, R-Biloxi. Patterson estimated he’s received about 1,500 or so emails since the news broke on Tuesday.
“Yesterday, they were all against (the current flag),” Patterson said. “Today, most of them look like they’re for the flag.”
Patterson said he’s undecided whether he supports changing the state flag.
“Right now I don’t have an opinion,” Patterson said. “I’ve got to do more research on the options.”
If the House were to achieve the votes and pass the resolution to change the state flag, it would move to the Senate for consideration. Sen. Derrick Simmons of Greenville, the Senate Democratic leader, said his colleagues are “monitoring what is going on the House.”
Simmons did not rule out the possibility of Senate Democrats making an effort to initiate its own legislation to change the banner in coming days.
In the 52-member Senate, there are only 16 Democrats, and all would likely vote in favor of changing the flag. If all 52 members voted, 19 Republicans would have to vote to change the flag.
Efforts to change the flag have been an issue in the state for decades. But those effort seems to have gained momentum in recent days in the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests that began nationwide after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, an African American man, after pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
Gov. Tate Reeves, who would have to sign or veto the bill if it passed both the House and Senate, has said he opposes the flag being changed solely by legislators without allowing a vote of the people. If Reeves vetoed a bill changing the flag, another two-thirds vote of both chambers would be required to override his veto.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Reeves was asked whether he had received much public feedback on the flag.
“There’s no doubt a lot of conversation surrounding that issue right now,” Reeves said on Wednesday. “That’s a very important conversation to have… My position has been consistent. If and when people of this state decide to change the flag, it needs to be a vote of the people, not politicians in a back room deal in Jackson.
Reeves continued: “I believe the current state flag was voted on in 2001 by the people of our state and they voted to keep it. At some point in the future, people might decide to change the state flag, but that needs to be a vote of the people of our state.”
In the meantime, legislators say they continue to receive correspondence on the issue.
Rep. Debra Gibbs, D-Jackson, said she has received many calls and emails about changing the flag — all of them in support of changing it, which she also supports. She said public opinion appears to be solidly in favor of change.
“I support changing it,” Gibbs said. “I think most people want change. They don’t care what flag replaces it. They just want it changed.”
But Rep. Randy Boyd, R-Mantachie, who said he would not support changing the flag without a vote of the people to change it.
“The emails I am getting from outside of my district favor changing it, but I would say those from inside my district favor the old flag,” Boyd said.
April 17, 2001. No smart phones. No social media. You went to Blockbuster to rent a video. 9/11 hadn’t happened. An 18-year-old voter, who can fight for our country, wasn’t even born. It was a totally differently world 6,994 days ago.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith leads Mike Espy 49-41 in new poll by Public Policy Polling.
A new poll shows incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith leading 49-41 over Democratic challenger Mike Espy in November’s U.S. Senate race that is a rematch from their 2018 special election battle.
While the poll, conducted by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, appears to place Hyde-Smith in a commanding position, the Espy campaign views the poll results as a positive for their underdog campaign.
Joe O’Hern, campaign manager for Espy, said Hyde-Smith has been trying “to ride it out” to the November general election, depending on her incumbency and the built-in electoral advantage the Republican Party has in the state to win the election with limited campaigning.
“If this poll is any indication before paid media has started, she is not going to just ride it out,” said O’Hern.
Justin Brassell, a spokesperson for Hyde-Smith, said the campaign had not seen the PPP poll, but said the polling it has seen has placed the incumbent in an even more commanding position.
But Brassell said Hyde-Smith intends to start campaigning more in the coming weeks.
“We are gearing up the campaign now that the state has reopened” from COVID-19 closures, he said. “She has already held some telephone town halls, and we will be opening campaign field offices in the near future.”
Espy, whose campaigning also has been limited by the coronavirus, has done multiple virtual town halls, has handed out boxes of food during the pandemic, and was among the estimated 3,000 people participating in the Black Lives Matter protest this past weekend in Jackson.
The poll of 871 Mississippians on land lines and by text messages was conducted in late May and has a margin of error of 3.3 percent. The poll results were released by the Espy campaign. PPP, which conducted the poll, is a national polling company and has the rating of a B from Five Thirty Eight, a well respected online site that analyzes statistics and data.
Hyde-Smith, who was appointed to the post in April 2018 by then-Gov. Phil Bryant to replace long-time Sen. Thad Cochran who stepped down for health reasons, defeated Espy in a November 2018 special election. They are in engaged in a rematch for a full six-year term.
Hyde-Smith, the first woman elected to Congress from Mississippi, has a favorability rating of 44 percent approval and 31 percent disapproval. Espy is at 38 percent approval to 36 percent disapproval.
But among African American voters, according to the poll, Hyde-Smith is at 19 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval. Espy, who in 1986 because the first black elected to the U.S. House from Mississippi in the modern era, is at 64 percent approval and 17 percent disapproval among African Americans.
“Espy has potential for growth where Hyde-Smith performs poorly, especially among African American voters and women,” the PPP poll analysis concluded.
Among women Espy actually outperforms Hyde-Smith in the poll – 46 percent to 42 percent.
African Americans, who make up nearly 38 percent of the state’s population, encompass 35 percent of the poll’s respondents. When Espy announced his candidacy this past November, he said his goal was to have 35 percent of the electorate in November be African American. He said research conducted by groups affiliated with his campaign found that about 32 percent of the electorate was African American in 2018, when Hyde-Smith won 54 percent-46 percent.
Brassell said poll results the Hyde-Smith campaign has seen place the race closer to the findings of an Impact Management Group poll that had Hyde-Smith at 58 percent compared to 31 percent for Espy.
The PPP poll also found the approval rating for President Donald Trump at 52 percent. The poll respondents said they voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a 55 percent to 39 percent margin with 6 percent not sure how they voted.
Perhaps the most surprising findings of the poll was the margin of support for expanding Medicaid: 57 percent to 22 percent. Many Republican elected officials in the state oppose expanding Medicaid by drawing down additional federal funds to provide health care coverage for as many as 300,000 low income Mississippians.
Espy has been campaigning on the issue of improving health care access in the state, including expanding Medicaid. An overwhelming number of Democratic respondents supported expanding Medicaid while it was supported by independents by a 47 percent to 22 percent margin, but opposed by Republican respondents 38 percent to 31 percent.
When schools first closed because of the pandemic, the most pressing issue for many districts wasn’t figuring out how to continue education.
“It wasn’t, ‘Oh my gosh how are we going to teach these kids?’ It was, ‘Oh my gosh these kids are going to starve without these meals,’” said Sunny Baker, co-director of the Mississippi Farm to School Network.
Before coronavirus, schools were a dependable place for thousands of children to receive a free and nutritious breakfast and lunch. The pandemic made this service even more crucial, as school buildings closed this spring and the virus wreaked havoc on the state and the nation’s economy, putting many parents’ jobs and economic futures in peril.
In Mississippi, 75 percent of children qualify for free or reduced meals, which means they live in households with income levels between 130 and 185 percent of the poverty line. Because of this, the majority of children are dependent on the free breakfast and lunch they get at school everyday. When schools abruptly closed, so did that food supply.
“We just have such a large population in Mississippi of students who depend on those meals,” said Scott Clements, state director of child nutrition at the Mississippi Department of Education. “That breakfast and that lunch is the most nutritious meal they’ll get and in some cases, the only meal they’ll get during the course of the day.”
Gov. Tate Reeves made the decision to close school buildings and switch to distance learning on March 19, which means most school districts sprung into action immediately upon their return from spring break.
In the weeks since, school nutrition departments have had to pivot to alternative methods to ensure students receive food, whether it be a grab-and-go format, school bus door stop delivery, or drive-up exchanges.
More than 4.65 million meals have been served from mid-March through April (May figures are not available yet), Clements said. On any given day during the academic year, more than 100 school districts offered grab-and-go meals at more than 350 sites, not counting the 14 nonprofits that served meals at an additional 53 sites. Schools are still serving during the summer; the number of districts and sites change daily, as schools are constantly making decisions about which locations and days of the week to continue serving while also keeping workers and families safe.
“We say that all the time during the course of the school year, we really love to see a child eat breakfast in the morning because they’re better prepared to learn that day,” Clements said. “We like to see them eat lunch because they’re not going to be hungry and distracted in the afternoon. The same goes for right now — we’re trying to do distance learning and I think it’s important to make sure the nutrition is right so that they are healthy and even though (learning) shifted to home, they’re still able to learn.”
In some cases, local school districts have stopped serving meals because of the coronavirus. The West Bolivar School District, for example, paused delivery for about a month for this reason. They were delivering meals to students along the bus route in an effort to reach kids in the most rural areas of the county. But when one of the food service staff contracted the coronavirus, the meal provisions had to stop immediately, said Jackie Lloyd, school board president.
Small towns that West Bolivar School District served like Shaw — where the only sources of food are one restaurant, two gas stations, and a Dollar General — were suddenly left to figure out how to bridge the gap of keeping kids fed.
“You go to [Dollar General] one day, the shelves are just bare. It’s a whole community of people trying to get the small amount that’s available. So it’s very hard for them, especially our elderly, to be able to survive and get adequate nutrition that they need during this time,” said Cora Jackson, who was born and raised in Shaw.
In Shaw’s case, the nonprofit Delta Hands for Hope stepped in.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Trinity McDaniel, left, and Chiquikta Fountain, executive director of Delta Hands for Hope, gives food to a Shaw resident outside of Delta Hands for Hope in Shaw, Miss., Friday, May 27, 2020.
“Delta Hands for Hope has been a pillar in Shaw for the past five to six years. Because our focus is on youth, there’s no way that I could not do something for these children,” said Chiquikta Fountain, executive director and sole employee of Delta Hands for Hope.
From Day One volunteers like Jackson, her husband, and a group of students showed up to assemble meals. Donors contributed money and meal boxes toward the effort. Delta Hands for Hope, which before the pandemic provided children with educational resources after school, now serves lunch to around 65 kids three days a week. Even with these efforts, they’re still not able to reach all of the children in Shaw who are enrolled in West Bolivar School District.
While the need for a reliable, nutritious food source has become a glaring issue during the time of this pandemic, the problem of food insecurity is not new.
“Food pantries are an emergency solution to a huge problem here. They’re a Band-Aid. All of this hunger talk and hunger work to me is going to be for naught if we’re not talking about changing the system in which hunger exists,” Baker, the co-director of Mississippi Farm to School Network, said.
That system in which hunger exists hinges on long-held economic policies that don’t promote the buying and selling of locally grown produce.
Mississippi’s agricultural “focus on export commodities appears to have led state officials, and educational institutions, to overlook the potential for creating new economic activity — and farm and food business ownership — through local foods,” states a report produced for the Mississippi Food Policy Council.
The same report estimates that Mississippi imports nearly 90 percent of its food, while exporting on a large scale commodity crops that have to be processed, like soybeans.
“We have this incredibly rich soil. The Mississippi Delta is the richest soil in the country. And we’re not growing food there. We’re growing commodity crops — stuff that people can’t eat,” Baker said. “We’re not supporting small scale farmers. In fact, there are many policies and legislation that prevent small farmers from doing what they need to do.”
This is just one of the factors contributing to what is commonly referred to as hunger in Mississippi. In this sense, hunger doesn’t necessarily mean starving to death. It means not knowing where the next meal will come from or not being able to access healthy, affordable food.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Food is prepared at Delta Hands for Hope in Shaw, Miss., Friday, May 27, 2020.
“There are people here who may not be starving like we see on TV where you have children who are malnourished. Starvation looks a different way. Having access to food looks totally different than what you think it does … There’s food, but it’s processed food. You may even have cooked food (from a gas station or restaurant), but you don’t know where that came from,” Fountain said.
Eddye Johnson, food service director in the Coahoma County School District, is also well aware of this problem. She knew it would be hard for students to get a nutritious meal — her concerns stemmed from the lack of healthy meals students eat rather than access to the food itself.
“A lot of these children can’t go in there and cook, so they might be hungry or eating (Ramen) noodles up until their parents come home. Every now and then I think about that. I try to do my best to make sure I do all I can to make sure each child gets a decent meal and something nutritious,” Johnson said.
On a statewide level, the department of education worked with the Mississippi Department of Human Services to secure additional funding for families. The Pandemic EBT Program (P-EBT) was passed by the federal government in March as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, and gives the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture the authority to approve statewide plans for temporary assistance to ensure that “children continue to have access to nutritious meals despite this national emergency.”
To date, 41 states have been approved, Mississippi included. The program serves 340,980 students to the tune of $90 million, or about $5.40 per student per day. The funding is retroactive, meaning it would cover the time from the date schools closed due to the pandemic (March 19) through the end of the school year (May 22).
The pandemic has also changed the way food is distributed. Ensuring the safety of employees and the greater communities they serve has led some districts to go from five days a week to one or two.
Cartons of milk for each child in some cases are now gallons, so families don’t have to come back repeatedly and increase contact and exposure. Before the virus, districts may have ordered large tins of canned peaches or strawberries; now they’re distributed in single-serve cups, Clements said.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
One of the boxes of food that is distributed at the Tutwiler Community Center.
“It’s a very different process from having 800 kids come through a serving line where you’re constantly being backfilled from the kitchen,” Clements, the state nutrition director, said. “Even though the numbers may be smaller, it’s tough to feed say, 400 kids in a serving line when you’ve got to bag up everything individually, have everything ready, keep it hot or cold as the case may be, outside of the kitchen.”
In the Jackson Public School District, meals were served at 12 sites across the city on Mondays and Wednesdays during the school year. Initially the district was serving Monday through Friday, but department officials decided it was best to stick to two days for the safety of everyone involved.
“Of course maintaining safety is always a concern,” said Marc Rowe, school nutrition director at the district. “It’s always a challenge to make sure that we’re all practicing social distancing and wearing all of our protective equipment.”
JPS is using a drive-up method, where parents pull up to the sites and workers hand them the bagged meals — two on Mondays and three on Wednesdays, so families have food for the week but don’t have to come by daily.
The state’s second largest school district typically serves about 19,000 lunches and 10,000 breakfasts a day during the school year.
“We know that because of those numbers, there is a major need for students to eat breakfast and lunch even though they’re not in a traditional school setting,” Rowe said.
Since mid-March when the governor closed schools to mid-May, Rowe said the district served roughly 125,000 meals. The district returned to Monday through Friday service on June 1 until June 10 for its summer feeding program.
The Coahoma County School District, which serves almost 1,200 students, delivered 1,200 breakfast and 1,200 lunches every day on Monday through Friday. The district ended their delivery meal services two weeks ago to prepare for their summer feeding program on June 1.
Maintaining employee safety is a challenge for all districts, but for some, trying to reach as many students as possible has been the biggest barrier of all.
Wilma McIntosh, food service director in the Clarksdale Municipal School District, said the stigma of the virus and rural areas the district serves are making it difficult to reach as many students.
“Even though the advertisement is out there and we’re encouraging everyone to come, some still don’t come. They may not have transportation and some they just may be fearful with coming out,” McIntosh said.
Clarksdale Municipal schools, Coahoma’s neighboring district, served grab-and-go meals — including breakfast and lunch — for five days a week. Across three sites, over 500 students received meals daily, McIntosh said.
But, this doesn’t equate to nearly half of the 3,000 students in the district. The district usually serves 525,000 meals per year.
As a way to reach more kids, the district implemented “Wildcat on Wheels,” bussing meals to students across the town. This one-day operation ended quickly for fear of the “safety for the community and employees,” McIntosh said.
Unlike schools, the issue for the Olive Branch Food Pantry, comprising more than 20 churches and organizations, wasn’t transportation. Michele McCrory, director, said their initial issue was finding volunteers. Their usual volunteers consisted of older people. Despite social distancing measures, they felt unsafe being around others, she said. As a result, the pantry closed in April.
“It was a hard decision for us. Many pantries opened during the COVID-19 scare. We have a couple of board members who are older or take care of elderly people, so they couldn’t get around people,” McCrory said.
The pantry secured younger volunteers and reopened in May operating as a drive through. They serve about 60 boxes every week to families.
In addition to food pantries, nonprofits and community organizations helped carry the load by giving monetary relief and helping hands for meal distribution.
In Tallahatchie County, The Tutwiler Community Education Center stepped in when the local school district couldn’t provide meals. Before the coronavirus, the organization’s role has always been to support the community in times of need.
“When the storm hit (earlier this year) and people lights were out and lost food, we were able to get a donation to get 10,000 gift cards for food to support that need and fortunately, we were able to partner with organizations,” Melanie Powell, executive director of the center, said.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Melanie Powell, executive director of the Tutwiler Community Education Center.
This time is no different except for the increasing demand of food, she said. They are now doling out more than 250 food boxes per week. At this rate, Powell says the center “will be a food bank.”
Through it’s FEED fund, the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi received over $150,000 to provide meals and food boxes to food pantries, church and community organizations, and food pantries. The Maddox Foundation of Hernando and the Walton Family Foundation gave over $100,000 to assist the foundation in its efforts.
While the pandemic has undoubtedly hindered people’s ability to access basic sustenance, it doesn’t mean that it has inflamed an overwhelming sense of despair in all.
“I don’t want to keep portraying our community like we don’t still have people who have pride in this place just because of something like this,” Fountain said. “People are resilient. They find ways to bounce back. Even in this time of confusion, I encounter people who have smiles on their faces, who are happy about life. They’re grateful to be here, even in the midst of all this stuff that’s going on.”
The Legislature passed a key deadline Tuesday – the deadline for bills to pass out of committee in the chamber where they did not originate.
On Wednesday, the full House and Senate will begin taking up those bills on the floor and soon final work will begin on passing a budget for the new fiscal year, which starts July 1.
The hurdle for legislation is on June 17, the deadline to take up bills in the full chamber where they did not originate.
Mississippi Today highlighted many bills and where they stand in this process:
Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America
Toni Coleman, Center Hill High School economics teacher, helps her 12th grade class with one of their final class projects in Olive Branch Tuesday, May 7, 2019.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, statewide elected officials promised and the Mississippi Legislature moved quickly on a bill that would provide annual pay raises for public school teachers. Now, as lawmakers worry about the state budget during the pandemic, it’s dead.
Senate Bill 2001, which would have raised teacher pay in the state with one of the lowest average teacher salaries, died in House committee on Tuesday’s legislative deadline.
Early in the session, the Senate passed a bill that would give a $1,110 raise to teachers in their first three years of teaching, and $1,000 for all other teachers thereafter. For assistant teachers, their salaries would increase to $15,000; a brand new teacher with a bachelor’s degree would earn $37,000.
The bill died in the House Education committee on Tuesday after lawmakers failed to take it up. When asked why the bill would not move forward in the legislative process, House Education Committee chairman Rep. Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, told Mississippi Today: “Look at the budget.”
While teachers did receive a $1,500 pay increase in the 2019 legislative session, many criticized it as nothing but a symbolic gesture, given that teachers in the state are still some of the lowest paid in the country. In the 2018-19 school year the average salary for a teacher was $45,105.
In January lawmakers described the teacher pay bill as a “first step” to increase teachers’ salaries to an adequate level, but the Legislature was forced to put the session on pause in March as a coronavirus precaution. During that break businesses closed, people lost their jobs, and the economy suffered.
Every state agency is facing cuts as the coronavirus pandemic has affected state revenue collections. Last month, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said that revenue could be $400 million below the estimate used to construct the current budget, and down as much as $800 million for the next fiscal year, beginning July 1. This means legislators may have to make double digit cuts to all state agencies.
“People are hurting, people are unemployed and we can’t do that to the taxpayers at this time,” Bennett said. “We’re just trying to maintain the services as best we can, so we can’t be adding to the budget at this point.”
Erica Jones, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, said her organization was not surprised to see the bill die. While disappointed, …”the reality is that it’s not just educators experiencing financial hardship right now.”
The pay raise bill is dead, but if circumstances did change lawmakers could attempt to revive the pay raise later in the session in another piece of legislation that’s relevant and still alive, although this is unlikely.
“A pay raise bill is never about lining our educators’ pockets,” Jones said. “None of us entered this profession to get rich. A meaningful teacher pay raise is about recruiting and retaining teachers, helping address the teacher shortage crisis, and making sure that every student in Mississippi has access to a highly qualified educator in their classroom.”
April 17, 2001. No smart phones. No social media. You went to Blockbuster to rent a video. 9/11 hadn’t happened. An 18-year-old voter, who can fight for our country, wasn’t even born. It was a totally differently world 6,994 days ago.
