School systems nationwide are trimming lunch menus, buying more food in bulk and delaying purchases of kitchen equipment to offset the costs of serving free or reduced-price lunches to millions of newly eligible students from cash-strapped families.
Record enrollment in subsidized meal programs has school systems large and small stretching already paper-thin budgets to ensure that students are well-fed and ready to learn. No region seems immune.
I was disappointed that the article did not make any mention of the seasonality of hunger among children. I was raised in a poor family where we always got free school lunches (and commodities–as I say to my children, being raised under vastly different circumstances, the only thing I had as a child that I can’t give them is–government cheese). I can assure you from first-hand experience, the end of the school year, with its free food, often brings a conspicuous degradation in the diets of poor children. The school lunches (and now, frequently, breakfasts) are often the best meals that these children get all day…at many points during my childhood that was definitely the case, especially toward the last third of the month. For this reason, the burden on food pantries grows substantially during the summers. I personally appeal to those of you, who, during this “current economic unpleasantness” do find yourself with some discretionary income, please to remember the role that local food pantries play in taking over the role of school lunch programs, and act accordingly with your contributions.