Food Insecurity
Childhood Poverty
Header Photo by Emmanuel Appiah on Unsplash
My favorite story this week comes from a state that hasn’t offered up a lot of good news in the past few months. But the east-coast town of Flagler, Florida, made some positive waves this week.
Under the Federal Child Nutrition Program, the county qualified to offer free lunch and breakfast to every student in all nine of its schools — no matter the family’s income. When schools re-open on Aug. 10, every student will take part in this program.
Free lunch for every student. No more humiliation or stigma for children whose families cannot provide enough for them.
In order to qualify for this Obama-era program, 40% of students had to qualify for food assistance. In County Flagler’s case, its percentage of qualifying students is over 60%. In other words, it’s a place where food insecurity runs rampant.
This is not a unique condition in this country of ours — last year, over 40,000 schools qualified and participated in the program that provides free lunch to all students.
The Biden Administration has proposed lowering the threshold to 25% of students as part of their commitment to end hunger in the country by 2030.
In the meantime, wouldn’t I love to be in a Flagler County school lunchroom on opening day to take in the faces of relief. And it seems lunch is going to be really healthy.
See full story from FlaglerLive here:
https://flaglerlive.com/community-eligibility-provision/
