WASHINGTON, May 7, 2021 — The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) strongly endorses the Universal School Meals Program Act of 2021 released today by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.). The proposed bill would ensure that all children have access to nutritious meals while they are at school, in summer and afterschool programs, and in child care.
The last year has underscored what anti-hunger advocates already know: There are many students who need a nutritious breakfast and lunch at school who don’t qualify for free or reduced price-school meals, leaving too many children from struggling families missing out. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused alarming spikes in childhood hunger and Black and Latinx households have been hit particularly hard.
Investments in nutrition programs during the pandemic have provided much-needed assistance for families with children. Since March 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has provided school districts and community partners with the flexibilities and resources needed to continue serving meals to children while schools were shuttered. These flexibilities will end after the 2021–2022 school year.
However, it will take years for struggling families to recover from this public health and economic crisis. We need to continue building on what we know works in order to fuel children’s health and learning after the next school year.
The Universal School Meals bill would ensure that all children have access to nutritious meals in order to learn and thrive year-round after the pandemic. The bill would
- provide free school breakfast, school lunch, and afterschool supper for all children;
- increase school breakfast and school lunch reimbursements rates to match the recommended rates of the USDA School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study – April 2019;
- end embarrassing practices directed toward students with unpaid school meal fees, and provide funding to schools for all delinquent school meal debt;
- provide a 30-cent reimbursement for schools that procure local foods to support providing healthy, local food options to children;
- provide free summer meals to all children and the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer program to all low-income children; and
- provide free meals to all children in child care.
Permanent healthy school meals for all students would be a gamechanger. The newly proposed bill will help reduce childhood hunger, decrease childhood overweight and obesity, improve child nutrition, enhance child development and school readiness, and advance academic achievement.
FRAC urges Congress to move quickly to pass this bill. Hungry children can’t wait.
