Pandemic-EBT providing Marylanders with food security February 12, 2021 MARYLAND – The Maryland Department of Human Services and the Maryland State Department of Education received approval from the USDA to operate a Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer Program. State officials say about 467,000 children in Maryland will benefit from it. These benefits called P-EBT will help families in Maryland purchase food while schools are closed due to COVID-19. Compared to regular EBT cards where you usually have to apply for, some families will automatically qualify. Mark Thompson with Emmanuel Wesleyan says, “People still need a lot of food so they’re still managing, do they pay their bills or do they buy food.” The P-EBT gives families an opportunity to purchase groceries. However, as much as it’s providing, some local food distribution directors are seeing a decline for the need of their services. “We started seeing that sort of decline. I started noticing that the lunches at the school started to drop because people now have those EBT cards now to buy food,” says Thompson