Free lunches up sharply in Vermont
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Charlene Keeler closes up the register at the end of lunch at the Rutland Intermediate and Middle School cafeteria on Tuesday. Vyto Starinskas / Rutland Herald |
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By DANIEL BARLOW VERMONT PRESS BUREAU - Published: December 9, 2009
MONTPELIER – It's not uncommon for a child to ask Teresa Felix for a second serving of breakfast on a Monday morning.
Especially if that child has not eaten since lunchtime on Friday.
"We see that a lot, especially this time of the year," said Felix, the dietary manager for the Rutland-based Vermont Advancement Center and the president of the Vermont School Nutrition Association. "Families are spending money on heating their homes or preparing for the holiday. Food is the last thing on the list."
So, it was not surprising to Felix to learn this week that a new national report showed a dramatic increase in the number of Vermont schoolchildren receiving free lunches – a boost that is the result of both eligibility changes and the poor state economy.
The Food Research and Action Network's School Breakfast Scorecard 2009 shows that, on average, 15,000 Vermont children receive free school food each day, an increase of 15.5 percent over the previous year.
That puts Vermont near the top of the list of states with a percentage of children receiving free breakfast or lunch in public schools. The Green Mountain State, according to this week's national study, is the third in the country for the number of children, per 100, who participate in the program.
Many other states saw growth, too – with 8.8 million low-income children participating in the school breakfast program, an increase of 520,000, and 18.9 million, a growth of 859,000 over the previous year, participating in the school lunch program.
Marissa Parisi, the executive director of the Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger, said Vermont lawmakers last year changed the eligibility for children from low-income families to receive subsidized lunches, essentially eliminating the category of students who pay a reduced fee for school breakfast.
She said that accounts for some of the increase Vermont has seen in the number of students receiving free meals at school.
"That was a tough category for children to be in," Parisi said. "Sometimes even 30 cents can be hard for a family every day. It's not uncommon to see kids ask their friends for extra nickels and dimes while they are in line."
The flip side of the increase is likely the result of the economy, she added, as job losses and wage cuts push more families into levels of poverty that allow their children to receive free or reduced school lunches.
According to the school lunch study, families that are 130 percent or less of the federal poverty level can get free meals for their children at school (that would be $27,560 a year for a family of four for the 2008-09 school year and $28,665 for this year's school calendar).
"These new numbers actually make me very hopeful," Parisi said of the increase in students receiving free meals. "This means we are seeing less kids than last year go to school hungry."
The Vermont Achievement Center, where Felix works, is a nonprofit charity group that offers everything from child care services to resources for homeless or runaway youth. Along with her role with the School Nutrition Association, Felix has seen firsthand how kids are eating in schools across the state.
In an ideal world, she said, school meals would be part of the district's annual budget and free to all students.
But since that still seems like a "perfect world" solution, Felix said there has been an increased focus in recent years on improving the food students eat. Once considered to be synonymous with fast food, school lunch programs are using more fresh and local items on their menus, she said.
"We've been trying to steer away from processed foods," she explained. "Fresh, whole foods are the future of school meals."
But feeding school children can be expensive, especially if a district wants to focus on health over cost. Although lunch budgets are a relatively small portion of education costs, Felix said it can cost around $150,000 a year to feed about 150 kids.
The federal government reimburses states between $1.46 to $1.74 per meal for students who come from low-income families, according to the report. Schools get about 26 cents in federal funds to pay for meals for students who don't meet the financial criteria and pay for their lunches.
Advocates said they hope the state will take the next step of eliminating the reduced cost lunch program and allow those students to get free lunches as lawmakers did last year for school breakfasts.
"Our long-term goal is to see that expanded to the lunch program," Parisi said.
A representative of Vermont's school lunch program at the Department of Education could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
daniel.barlow@rutlandherald.com
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