Reply to no more free breakfast or lunch next school year

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[quote=Anonymous]We can easily afford food for our kids' lunches (they eat breakfast at home), but the sunsetting of this program is one of the symptoms of our political dysfunction that I'm most frustrated by.

First, I spend a lot of volunteer time with service delivery programs for low income families, and any time there is a requirement to jump through a hoop for a benefit, even if you clearly qualify for it, the utilization rate goes down. Kids from families that struggle to afford food will go hungry, just as they did pre-pandemic.

Second, the COVID program actually raised the subsidy amount for meals, which gave school districts a lot more flexibility for food choices (much of which was needed due to supply chain issue). In my kids' district there was a notable, and successful, effort to improve the quality, nutritional content, and sustainability of our lunch program. This builds a foundation for a lifetime of health...and will save us healthcare costs as a country in the long run.

Third, there are unquestionably equity benefits of kids all basically eating the same thing instead of having noticeable differences between families of different means.

I know that school lunch programs can be improved in many ways, but I thinks universal lunch was a step toward progress. As with so many other things, this is a step backward.[/quote]

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