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Page 3 the Panther September 19,1980 Food Stamps Students No Longer Eligible BY ANGELA C. ESANNASON College students not em ployed for at least 20 hours per week interested in applying for food stamps will not be eligible for stamps beginning October 1, according to the Department of Human Resources. Beginning October 1, college students who are not working at least 20 hours per week will not be eligible for food stamps. Congress passed a bill last fiscal year to tighten up the food stamp program excluding some some students. “The thinking behind the bill,- ’’ said Nick Taylor, Assistant com missioner for public affairs at the Department of Human Resources “is an effort by Congress to try to cut spending and to keep the budget down.” Taylor added that the thinking was that, “If students can go to Black Students Take Action In a serious attempt to revitalize interest in the 107 traditionally black colleges across the country and to draw attention to the threat of their continued existence, hundreds of thousands of students, scholars, opinion leaders and civil rights leaders will stage a gigantic march and rally in the nation’s capitol on September 29. The event, the very first of its kind, is Black College Day '80 which culminates Black College Month. "Black College Day '80, the first celebration of the beauty and achievements of the institutions which have graduated 75 percent of all black Ph.D.’s, 75 percent of all black army officers and 80 percent of all black doctors, will not just talk about black culture and excellence, but will demonstrate them also,” says Tony Brown, noted black journalist and a leading advocate for the coalition to help save black colleges. _ The march per se will involve, in competition, the best march ing bands from the 107 predominantly black colleges. Three winners will be selected Black College Day '80 Band. In addition, a queen and her court, drawn from the pool of black college queens, will reign over the festivities as Miss Black College Day ’80. school on Daddy’s money, they don’t need any food stamps. But if the students are working their way through school, then they would be eligible.” During the last fiscal year en ding June 30, some $253 million, 752,000 in food stamps were is sued in Georgia to 655,000 food stamp recipients, Taylor said. Across the nation people ap plying for food stamps could be asked to provide more proof of information on their ap plications under a new rule proposed by the Dept, of Agriculture. Currently, all persons applying for food stamps must document their income, social security number, and certain medical and utility expenses. Persons who are not U.S. citizens must prove that they are legal aliens to this country for permanent residence. States are also permitted to re quire all applicants to provide proof of their liquid assists. In ad dition, states must require proof of a number of other eligibility factors, such as rent or household composition whenever the information provided by an applicant ^ques tionable. In addition, the regulation would put into effect a provision of food stamps legislation enacted in May that allows states to develop a profile of the types of food stamp cases and eligibility factors that are most subject to error. States would then be able to require verification of all information and food stamp cases that fit into these categories shown to be “error prone". “The error prone profile can be an important management tool," Assistant Secretary Carol T. Foreman said. "States should be able to use it to target their verification efforts qn the in formation and cases most likely to cause errors. This can help to promote administrative ef ficiency while reducing errors at the same time.” Other changes in the new regulations would expand the authority of states to conduct home visits and contact persons who may have information about applicants, require verification of household iden tity and residency in every Case, and permit more verification of information provided by des titute households seeking emergency food stamps. The proposed rule is the latest in a series of Departmental and congressional efforts to tighten food stamp management. Other rules put into effect during the summer required persons dis qualified for food stamp fraud to arrange to pay back the value of the stamps they received before being allowed to rejoin the program. These changes were authorized by legislation proposed by Congress last summer. While the new proposal should help reduce food stamp errors, Assistant Secretary Foreman expressed concern that the rules could have limited im pact in those states that lack the staff to conduct sufficient verification. "We are worried that some states do not have enough staff to check out in formation on food stamp ap plications with sufficient thoroughness,” she said. "No matterwhatthe verification rules are, the job cannot be done properly if states are short on staff.” Comments on the proposal must be received by Oct. 13 and should be addressed to: Alberta Frost, Deputy Administrator for Family Nutrition Program, Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Dept, of Agricultu re, Washington, D.C. 20250. Quality Is The Key To M&M Products As students at Mercer University School of Pharmacy in 1972, Cornell McB ride and Therman McKenz ie took $500 in savings and a $500 bank loan and bought selected chemicals, bottles, a 55 gallon steel barrel and a pool cue. They set up. in a basement, developed their Sta-Sof-Fro hair spray and have been abouttheir own business ever since. Last year, their Atlanta - based ethnic health & beauty aids products firm - M&M Products Company - doubled sales and jumped from number 99 to number 43 in the Black Enterprise list of 100 black businesses. They expect to double that this year. The black owned and operated company now employs about 200 production, administrative and clerical workers, including several graduate chemists, plus a sales force covering 65 national markets. And M&M has recently stationed a sales representative in Lagos, Nigeria. "But they really have built the business right, with control, foresight, planning and most of all young wisdom,” said one ad mirer closely involved with the company. "You know, not being overly impressed with the wrong things and keeping their eye on the sparrow, so to speak." They borrowed about $160,000 in Small Business Administration guaranteed loans, but other than that, they’ve been reinvesting the money into the business. McBride and McKenzie, president and vice president respec tively, are described as “workaholics who have a finely honed social conscience.” They point out that in addition to keeping all company matters closely under control, they are deeply com mitted to reinvestment into their community through local charitable, educational and artistic enterprises. Over the last 8 months they have made substantial contributions to the NAACP and UNIGEF, a science - mathematics scholarship to their alma maters, Fort Valley State College and Mercer University and McBride and McKenzie received many awards. M&M Products Company is also staging nationwide races to aid Sickle Cell Foundations during the summer. All proceeds will be the dis tributed through the Willie Stargell Foundation of Pittsburgh. Sponsorship of arts and cultural events is a constant in volvement in their many markets. But recently M&M Products launched a new venture. In the interest of supporting quality television programming as a reinvestment into the black com munity, the company has recently sponsored the news - history film. "Blacks In America.” This national broadcast, hopefully the first of a series, also carried with it M&M’s three new commercials for Sta - Sof - Fro Hair Spray, Style Kit and the new Curl Activator. Dr. Eli McKenzie, Therman McKenzie’s brother and the firm’s director of research, development and quality control, will tell you about the importance of that end of the business. “Quality is the key and our first objective in manufacturing.” There is a new beauty salon at M&M where on-going observation is made of con sumers who use products. In addition to manufacturing, packaging and marketing its own “Sta - Sof - Fro” brand of hair and beauty products, M&M makes packages of private label health and beauty products for other companies and is seeking to acquire other companies. In late July, a completely new product line, Sof n’ Free, will be introduced. This cold wave formula, directed toward the black female con sumer, has already gained much attention for thequalty of its curl in its extensive testing period. “Things are looking very good for us,” said President McBride last week in an interview sandwiched between a morning business meeting and an afternoon flight to Canada to shop for new manufacturing equipment. “We managed to dosomethingsright in the beginning of this business, and they’re paying off for us right now.” Why has M&M done so well so quickly? “We’re very young. Our average age is 32 or something like that. I think that traditionally, when this kind of thing is started, the group that is handling it is much older. So, we’re in the rightstage, and we’re receptive to new things and amenable to change. We want to learn and we want to accomplish." Therman McKenzie, vice president, reportedly likes to tell people he’s from "DC" quickly adding with a laugh that "DC stands for Dooly County, Ga., not the nation’s capital.” But his other favorite quip describes one of the company’s marketing aims - to improve their ID of M&M Products as the makers of Sta - Sof - Fro. He says "M&M isn’t the candy company - but it's still chocalate!” According to Brown, the number attending the march and rally is projected to be about a half million and the chances of breaking the attendance record for the March On Washington in 1963 are good. A literal coalition of every fraternal, sororal, church, civic, student, business, social, athletic, labor, political and educational group in black America will constitute the march from the White House to the Capitol. The premise of the movement is to stop those who believe that black colleges are inferior and unnecessary. Lorenza P. Butler, president of the National Pre - Alumni Council of the UNCF has formed a committee in the Atlanta University Center to coordinate the sending of about 1,000 students to represent the colleges in the Center at the Black College Day march and rally. Each student body president at the undergraduate institutions in the Center have been distributed 250 tickets cos ting $15 a piece until September 19 and $20 afterwards. Places on the buses going to Washington are reserved on a “first come, first served” basis. The deadline for all reservations is September 26.