Red tape and other hurdles are getting in the way, especially for those children who aren't getting nutritious meals at home, the people in charge of keeping kids fed in Kentucky schools said.

Leah Feagin, Nutrition Director at Mayfield Independent Schools, said administrative burdens and differing guidelines for federal programs have left her with mounds of paperwork, including having to provide attendance rosters in order to feed kids after-school snacks and supper, which she says is time-consuming.

"Why are we having to jump through all these hoops when, if I'm doing this for breakfast and lunch, I'm obviously going to do this for snack and supper? I'm not going to do it a different way," Feagin said.

Groups fighting childhood hunger are rallying today at the State Capitol in Frankfort for state policies that would give schools more flexibility to offer meals to kids, boost safety-net programs like SNAP and WIC, and expand the state's Farms to Food Banks program.

Cassidy Wheeler, advocacy coordinator at Feeding Kentucky, pointed out because pandemic-era "free meals for all kids" policies have ended, not all students qualify for school meals, leaving the school districts with lower reimbursement rates.

"Their budgets are really suffering, you know," Wheeler said. "They're having a really hard time being able to serve nutritious meals that meet all of the USDA standards, because they just don't have the money for it."

Feagin said many children come to school in the morning on an empty stomach, go without lunch, and added those kids will remain hungry, unless they eat at school.

"My problem is those parents that aren't sending food for their kids. So, if I quit offering the program, I know those kids are being missed - and that's hard to contend with," Feagin said.

Nationwide, almost 1.5-million children regularly received an after-school supper through Afterschool Nutrition Programs, according to 2020 data from the Food Research and Action Center.

Preliminary data shows schools are serving fewer meals than they did last year, largely due to the end of nationwide pandemic-era waivers which allowed schools to serve meals at no cost to all children. According to a recent report, Kentucky saw a 34% increase in lunch participation and a nearly 3% increase in the number of kids who ate breakfast at school over the past few years.

Clarissa Hayes, Deputy Director for School and Out-of-School Time Programs at the Food Research & Action Center, said the gap between Kentucky kids receiving breakfast and lunch now appears to be widening as kids and families go back to the tiered eligibility system used to determine who qualifies for free school meals.

"For Kentucky, what we saw is that for the breakfast-to-lunch comparison, for every 100 children receiving a lunch, about 65 are receiving a breakfast," Hayes said. "So, that's a little bit lower than the year before where, for every 100 children receiving lunch, 85 are receiving a breakfast."

Research shows regular school meals improve kids' academic performance, mental health and nutritional intake. Federal data from 2019 shows nearly 15-million students ate a school breakfast and nearly 30-million students ate school lunch on a typical day.

There are pathways to ensuring that consistent access to healthy school meals is a reality for all kids, Hayes said.

"Ideally, that would be expanded, expanded on the federal level, but we are seeing many states that are taking it upon themselves to pass legislation to make sure that all kids are getting those meals at no cost," she said.

Some states are stepping up to fill the gap to cover the cost of school meals regardless of kids' eligibility, including California, Maine and Colorado.


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Students in the Orlando area could soon get more classroom time during their lunchtime, to learn more about ways to fight hunger and food waste.

It is estimated 40% of the food produced globally is lost or wasted. The "Food Waste Warrior" program of the World Wildlife Fund inspires children to help alleviate local and global food insecurity. It prompts them to think through practical, easy-to-implement solutions, like a "share table," where food they are not going to eat can be shared with someone else.

Alex Nichols-Vinueza, program manager for food loss and waste for the World Wildlife Fund, said the idea is to empower students to have a role in addressing issues in their community.

"Around food insecurity, around the environmental impacts of the food system," Nichols-Vinueza explained. "It's a way that it's not controversial; that you can really engage students on some of these issues."

He pointed out they are just starting in Orlando, making connections with school districts and community partners and their goal is to work with five to seven schools in the year ahead. In addition to providing free educational materials, there will be grant opportunities to get programs and ideas off the ground.

Nichols-Vinueza noted reducing food waste is increasingly being recognized as an effective solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He added it is not political, like so many facets of the climate-change debate. And one practical way to help students understand is through "show and tell."

"Engaging in an interactive way, get into their cafeterias and look at what's being thrown away," Nichols-Vinueza emphasized. "What are those foods that are most being discarded, and why. And it's a very visceral understanding of the issue."

The program calls on schools across the country to use their cafeterias as classrooms through activities like conducting food-waste audits, and learning more about the connections between their food, wildlife and habitat conservation.

As families struggle with inflation and high gas prices, Ohio schools said they are seeing a staggering rise in the number of students whose parents cannot afford to pay for lunch, but who do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

Lindy Douglas, coordinator of whole child and wellness programs for Alexander Local Schools in Athens County, said school lunch debt has more than doubled this year from pre-pandemic levels.

She pointed out cafeteria workers are being forced to deny children food because they owed charges.

"That was a little heartbreaking for my staff to deny children and take the tray away," Douglas noted.

According to the group Hunger Free Schools Ohio, it would cost the state less than $2 per child per day to provide free school meals to all students in Ohio.

Advocates said eliminating school meal debt and significantly reducing the administrative work required to operate School Nutrition Programs could help solve the problem.

One in six Ohio children, and as many as one in four children in certain counties, lives in a household facing hunger. Douglas emphasized even kids who received free school breakfasts do not always get fed, and start the day on an empty stomach.

"What I also found is that children who come to school late, they end up in panic mode, worried to death they're not going to get their breakfast because they missed it and the doors closed," Douglas observed.

Katherine Ungar, policy associate for the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio, said school meals are just as important to student's academic success as textbooks.

"They are linked to better educational outcomes, including increased test scores, improved academic attendance and increased graduation rates," Ungar outlined.

A 2022 survey conducted by Baldwin Wallace University in collaboration with Children's Defense Fund-Ohio found 87% of respondents agreed school meals should be provided at no cost to all Ohio students.