Oklahoma families who received help buying groceries through a federal program administered by tribal nations reported lower levels of food insecurity and more access to fruits and vegetables during the summer than those who were not part of the program.
This is according to a recently released case study that looked into the impact of the Summer EBT program in 2024, conducted by the Food Research and Action Center and the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative.
The two groups found that “tribes currently administering the program are doing so effectively, demonstrating both expansive capacity and commitment to serve their own citizens and other families within their service areas.”
Gov. Kevin Stitt opted out of statewide participation in the program for 2024, and again in 2025, but some Oklahomans have still been still eligible for its benefits.
This was thanks in large part to the Chickasaw and Cherokee nations in 2024, who helped administer the program to Oklahomans living on certain reservations in the eastern part of the state, whether they were Native or not.
Children are eligible for the summer program if they receive free or reduced-price school meals or if their household is covered by some other types of federal aid programs, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called food stamps.
Households receive $40 a month per child for three months during the summer and can buy food, like fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy and bread.
Chris Bernard, the president and CEO of Hunger Free Oklahoma, said last year, the program covered around 200,000 kids living within the Muscogee, Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw reservations, as well as some smaller reservations that bordered Chickasaw Nation.
This year, the program’s coverage has grown.
Bernard said the USDA approved the Chickasaw Nation’s request for expansion into Oklahoma and Cleveland counties for 2025, adding potentially 100,000 more children. The Otoe-Missouria Tribe based in Red Rock has also signed on to reach children within its jurisdiction.
“It will serve, if it reaches every eligible kid in the service areas, it’s designed to close to 330,000,” Bernard said. “It may not quite get there just because of the timing and stuff, but it will be close to 50% more kids than it served last year, and close to three-fourths of the total eligible kids in the state.”
'Without the tribes, the program would not exist'
The tribes’ impact on the program in Oklahoma, he said, has been huge.
“Quite literally without the tribes, the program would not exist,” Bernard said.
Danielle Butler, the Otoe-Missouria tribe’s Summer EBT coordinator, said the tribe has supported 1,179 children within its service area of Noble County, which has a significant poverty rate.
Butler has seen the Summer EBT program’s success firsthand. She has heard from multiple parents how difficult this time of year is when school is out and daily free or reduced-price meals are no longer available for their children.
For many families, she said, summer means heartbreaking decisions between buying food or paying essential bills.
“Knowing that we’re helping families bridge that gap -- that’s what makes this work so meaningful,” Butler said.
And the new case study quantifies these efforts.
The Chickasaw Nation stated in the case study that it served 47,000 students in the Chickasaw Nation service area in the summer of 2024, and with the help of Hunger Free Oklahoma and Cherokee Nation, an additional 93,000 students were served in the Muscogee Nation, which covers much of Tulsa.
According to the report, food insecurity rates in Indian Country are more than double the national average. With this Summer EBT program, recipients reported lower levels of food insecurity.
“Nearly 75% of recipients agreed that the Summer EBT Program helped free up funds to purchase other food items for their household,” the study also states.
The IFAI and the FRAC worked with the Chickasaw Nation to complete the report.
Kelli Case, the staff attorney for the Fayetteville, Arkansas-based IFAI, said that the relationship with the tribes looks like an ongoing conversation that they are always working to be in.
“It was a truly wonderful experience to get to build upon a relationship with the nation and get to highlight their great work,” Case said. “I can't speak highly enough about the incredible folks doing this work there: passionate, how knowledgeable they are and how excited they are to improve the lives of everybody, every eligible student in their jurisdictions.”
Butler said with a full year of experience behind them, the Otoe-Missouria tribe is incredibly proud of what it has learned and even more excited about the improvements, insights and impact it can bring in the years ahead.
As for the possibility of the program being statewide next year, some worries have arisen since President Donald Trump’s budget reconciliation bill came into law in July.
Bernard said the deadline is in August for the state to file.
“The most recent reconciliation bill passed a lot of new costs up to the state, like the federal reconciliation bill, so I’m sure they’re looking at where they’re going to invest dollars,” Bernard said.
Stitt’s spokespeople, Meyer Siegfried and Abegail Cave, did not respond to questions about whether the governor would participate statewide in 2026.
But Bernard hopes the state will participate.
Kelsey Boone, a senior child nutrition policy analyst at FRAC based in Washington, D.C., also noted the “enormous impact” the Summer EBT Program had in a year.
“Summer EBT is a proven method to reduce food insecurity all over the country,” Boone said. “We want every entity that would like to run the program to be able to run the program.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Recent case study shows impact of tribes' summer EBT program
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