Free school lunch program launched during pandemic ending soon
A heads-up for parents: The program offering universal access to free school lunches is set to expire this summer.
The program has helped millions of students in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it could now cause an added cost to parents’ wallets.
The $1.5 trillion spending bill signed into law by the president earlier this month failed to extend the funding given by congress for school meal programs.
In 2020 and 2021, the coronavirus relief packages added more than $8 billion to the government budget for child nutrition.
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The emergency funding also gave the USDA the go-ahead to issue waivers that relaxed program requirements.
"They made school meals free for all students to make sure that students who were impacted by the pandemic, maybe a parent lost a job, you know, wouldn't have to go through that burdensome application process," said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association (SNA).
"It also made meal distribution faster and safer. And you know, you didn't have to ask kids to, you know, type in a pin number to verify access to a free meal or to charge families who weren't eligible for a meal."
Pre-pandemic, over 800,000 students from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia took part in the free and reduced-price lunch program.
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That number is expected to be drastically higher when new data becomes available.
FOX 5 spoke to a parent who says those free lunches are critical because it’s hard to find work right now.
"It’s bad because we don’t have that much money for the food and less for the gas," said a parent we spoke to.
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Families using the universal free school meals should have been given notice that this program is set to expire by June 30th.
It was anticipated Congress would pass at least one more year of this aid, but now there’s potential for millions of children to go hungry.
Now, this doesn’t just affect families. The SNA says schools will also be impacted.
Since they have to follow certain nutritional requirements, school districts may have to adjust their budgets for food costs and supply chain disruptions.
There is a push for the waiver to be extended including a bill that is currently making its way through the House.