Current Events > 10 million children to lose out on free school lunches as they expire

(+) Yeah! (+)

For the last two years, the notion that no kid should ever have to go hungry in the US has gotten closer to a reality, thanks to federal waivers that have expanded childrens access to food. The waivers resulted in a simple but revolutionary outcome: free lunch, year-round, for every American schoolchild.

But that will come to an end in weeks, as Congress has failed to include an extension of the waivers, which have allowed schools to offer school lunches as well as summer lunch handouts, enabling an estimated 10 million more students to get a free meal.

Now, as rising prices hit families and school food programs alike, the programs expiration will cause a cliff that some parents, cafeteria workers and nutrition advocates say could cause a catastrophe.

Ample research shows the educational, health and behavioral benefits for students who eat breakfast and lunch. But millions of students cannot afford to pay a full-price school lunch, and a pre-pandemic survey by the School Nutrition Association found as many as 75% of school districts in America have unpaid student meal debt.

Under the old rules, for a student to qualify for a subsidized meal, a students family would have to submit an application including some of their financial information. These applications are complicated and can cause embarrassment, according to Jillien Meier, the director of No Kid Hungry, a food access advocacy group.

Particularly for kids in communities where there were lower to moderate poverty rates, theres a huge stigma attached to free meals and parents maybe didnt want their kids identified that way, she said.

Now, those students are no longer treated differently. In March 2020, Congress allowed the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to implement child nutrition waivers, which enable schools to be reimbursed at higher rates for serving free food to all students, regardless of the students ability to pay. Under these more flexible rules, families no longer have to fill out applications for students to receive free lunches at school, and schools have been able to expand their food distribution methods, including handing out curbside meals to students during lockdown.

The waivers also dramatically expanded the USDAs Summer Food Service Program, by eliminating geographical requirements, and allowing community groups to bring food directly to people in bulk. They took meals to housing authorities. They took meals door to door. They bundled meals so that families that were quarantining could come out one time a week and pick up seven days worth of meals, said Meier.

The result was a cumulative 4.3bn meals distributed through the service program over the last two summers alone, a roughly thirtyfold increase over pre-pandemic levels, according to federal statistics.
...
When the waivers expire on 30 June, the impact will be felt almost immediately, said Meier, when the summer meals program launches with far fewer participating sites.

Food service vendors, sensing Congresss lack of interest in renewing the expanded food programs, have already shifted their focus from the school market to the more profitable consumer market. For schools, that has exacerbated already dire supply chain issues.

I think were going to see in real time the summer hunger crisis grow, and thats going to give us a preview of whats going to happen next school year, said Meier.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/04/us-school-hunger-crisis-federal-waivers-end

Still dont get how republicans have the face to pretend to care about kids and life.

Dang, how much does a school lunch cost these days?

"We don't want you teaching kids this subject or that subject, we don't want our schools to be safer outside of making them prisons or with a heavy police presence, which won't matter anyway because they'll just stand outside, and we don't want your kids to eat."

The "pro-life" party, everyone

School lunches are like $1.50. Who can't pay for that?

IdiotMachine posted...

School lunches are like $1.50. Who can't pay for that?

I'mma just preemptively tell you to shut the fuck up.

IdiotMachine posted...

School lunches are like $1.50. Who can't pay for that?

Thank you for showing how being unaware of privilege works like. Even if you don't think you are.

IdiotMachine posted...

School lunches are like $1.50. Who can't pay for that?

They're way more than that now lol.

At my school kids from low income families eat for 25 cents a day. Its not free but thats not terrible imo

Defend this conservatives. Fucking defend your ideology and the awful politicians you vote for because you know if anyone tried to fix this Republicans would vote against it 100%.

LightHawKnight posted...

Still dont get how republicans have the face to pretend to care about kids and life.

The right have the ability to believe in multiple realities at once. They can both be all about the kids while at the same time saying "fuck them kids". Republican supporters' minds are warped by propaganda and full of hate.

Conservative values

Chesh posted...

They're way more than that now lol.

They were like $2 back when I was in high school over 20 years ago. This topic reminds me that I miss my high schools chicken nuggets.

IdiotMachine posted...

School lunches are like $1.50. Who can't pay for that?

The parents pay for a set amount of time I think.

Go ahead and do free lunch for everyone. If prisons can afford it, so can schools.
Any shortcomings will be more than made up by the bougie "a la carte" line and vending machines.

Well maybe if they didn't want to starve they should have thought of that before being born to poor parents.

IdiotMachine posted...

School lunches are like $1.50. Who can't pay for that?

https://tinyurl.com/22kmpx8h

10% of the population of the USA.

My kid's school has offered free breakfast and lunch the entire time he's been there. He's eaten it maybe 3 times. It irritates me because I'd love it if he would eat the school food and save me money, but he just won't. He'd rather be hungry

Thats too bad. It was certainly enjoyable not having to pay for the school lunches.

It looks like dems are blaming republicans, but its not like theyre blocking anything as the Biden admin decided to not include it in the bill.

Whatever. Seems like they could have shaved a bit off of their proxy war budget for this.

Children in schools should not need to pay for their lunches.
Period.

It's disgusting.

Democrats don't have the votes to overturn the filibuster and there isn't 10 Republicans who will vote for it.

Funkydog posted...

Well maybe if they didn't want to starve they should have thought of that before being born to poor parents.

Say what?

republicans dont want to help anyone if theres the possibility of helping even one person who they think doesnt deserve/need it

the desire to kill this problem is from the same misguided attitude towards drug testing food stamp recipients: inconvenience everyone, even waste money doing so, just to make sure that were not wasting a fraction of a fraction of federal budget money on someone undesirable

*Standard election commerical music plays with an old white man in a cowboy looking outfit firing a gun with poor form"

"Republicans. We force you to be born to parents who don't want you and will resent you. But it gets better!

We promise to

-Make your education as shit as possible
-Allow you to say and do anything you want no matter how harmful it is unless it pisses off Christians.
-Destroy your air, water and resources.
-Make it easier for you to be violently murderer
-Destroy the internet
-Ban porn
-Bully businesses who don't agree with us
-Fight tooth and nail to oppose common sense pandemic measures.
-Make your healthvare as expensive, inaccesible and complicated as possible
-Allow police to do whatever the fuck they want regardless of the law and get really mad when you don't literally lick their boots
-Piss off all our foreign allies
-Make your children have to go into to debt to not starve at school. Teaches them character.
-Encourage sexist, reckless, bigoted and violent behavior as "traditional" "boys being boys" etc.
-When you turn to drugs to dull the pain of our policies or simply get addicted from medical treatment we punish you for that too! Oh and the mostly harmless non addictive ones are also punisetc.

Fuck you to hell we fucking hate everyone who isn't just like us. Vote Republican 2024 because Nihilsitic consumerism and Sociopathic Individualism are FUCKING COOL! *Eagle cry and explosions*"

Fuck the GOP.

Suolevram posted...

Say what?

I should have added the /s it seems, as got modded for it.

I guess it is a sad truth many do legit think like that though.

IdiotMachine posted...

School lunches are like $1.50. Who can't pay for that?

What year do you think this is?

Fucked up, but I see way too much blame on the GoP for this. Democrats aren't doing anything either and Biden could add it to the bill if he wanted.

So what, I never ate lunch during high school way back in the day. If I did it they can too.

School lunches should be free dude

voldothegr8 posted...

Fucked up, but I see way too much blame on the GoP for this. Democrats aren't doing anything either and Biden could add it to the bill if he wanted.

Then Manchin blocks if for being "fiscally irresponsible" or some horseshit

Back when I went to school us free lunch kids got mocked and looked down on.

And if you brought lunch from home you had better have a new lunchbox with the latest thing printed on it because they didn't like brown baggers or a old lunchbox with last years popular thing printed on it.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Suspended now...

PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

Back when I went to school us free lunch kids got mocked and looked down on.

And if you brought lunch from home you had better have a new lunchbox with the latest thing printed on it because they didn't like brown baggers or a old lunchbox with last years popular thing printed on it.

ok but you got to eat?

Buys the animals a little more time :)
But kids gotta eat

Free vegetarian meals for everyone hooray