Recently our federal government has made cuts to programs and departments that greatly impact feeding our students two free meals per day regardless of income, and there are more proposed cuts pending. The government cut the federal Local Foods program that refunded our programs for purchasing local produce and products from Maine farmers and producers. Not only did this program help schools afford locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, and locally made food items from Maine grown ingredients, it also helped Maine farmers and small businesses. The federal government has frozen funding that paid the salaries of Maine Department of Education (DOE) child nutrition employees which, for now, are being paid by the state. These offices regulate our program to assure requirements are being met, provide and distribute our commodities, and, more importantly, distribute the reimbursements that fund our school meals program. The federal government has other cuts on the table that would greatly impact all school’s ability to feed our students at no cost to the families. Among these are raising the Community Eligibility Provision qualification from its current 25% to 60%. I will not bore you with the details of this benefit but will state that this cut will impact over 420 schools in our state alone, lowering qualifying schools from 423 to 31. This provision removes some or all of a state’s financial burden to provide free meals for over 168,000 students statewide and puts it back into the federal government instead. It saves directors time, money, and energy that is needed in other parts of their programs. We as food service directors, also do not know what our reimbursement rates per meal will be next year or if this too will be cut. These reimbursements cover most of the costs of the programs ability to provide two free meals per day, labor to make those meals, equipment and maintenance costs, as well as the other materials we need. This money takes the burden out of the school budget and makes our program self-sustainable. Without the help from our government, programs for districts the size of ours costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Larger districts programs cost upwards of a $1,000,000. Without these programs these costs would have to be absorbed into school budgets further impacting local taxes including for those residents who do not have kids in school.

Last Thursday, April 10th, Full Plates Full Potential, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending childhood food insecurity in Maine through school nutrition programs, presented testimonies form school nutrition directors and others to support a bill amended by Senator Mike Tipping (D-Penobscot) to help put protections and funding in place to secure the future of Maine’s School Meals for All , or as now known, “An Act to Maximize Federal Funding and Protect Maine’s Universal School Meal Program”. I would like to share with you the full version of the abbreviated testimony I submitted, as speaking time for each testimony was limited to three minutes. Three minutes is no where near enough time to express the positive effects the Maine School Meals for All has had on our students.

First, a very brief history. Our school system, including Georgetown, serves over 600 students of whom approximately 405 get lunch, and approximately 300 get breakfasts/snack on a daily basis. Almost half of our students qualify for free or reduced meals under current state and federal guidelines. In addition to the reimbursements per meal that we receive from both state and federal funds, we also receive over $20,000 per year of government commodities and discounts that make up the bulk of USA produced and grown proteins, fresh, canned and frozen fruits and vegetables, and minimally processed items. This makes up less than 5% to 10% of our overall costs to run our program. The reimbursements make up most of the rest of our costs, making our school lunch and breakfast program mostly self-sustaining apart from the school budget. Before the Covid pandemic, besides reimbursements for free meals and a small amount for reduced, the program relied on families who didn’t qualify for free meals to pay for their children’s meals. This created hardships for families that qualified for reduced meals or fell just outside of the guidelines and resulted in often unpaid school meal debt. During Covid, we fed any child who wanted meals for free through government grants issued to states to navigate the rising costs and unemployment caused by the pandemic. Once back in school and seeing a rise in participation because meals were still free, Maine became one of the first states in the nation to implement Free Meals for All regardless of income. This program helps to relieve hunger for our most food insecure children here as well as throughout our state. This program is not sustainable through only state funds.

Now to my testimony

I have been working in school food service for over 10 years and have been the director of the program for the last 5. I have worked in every school in our district as an employee, a sub, a manager and now director and watched many kids from all walks of life pass through our schools. I have seen the good and great from our students as well as the bad and ugly. I have watched kids navigate some of the worst that life has to offer and come out strong and healthy on the other side. I have seen the disparity of family incomes be used as a tool to both suppress and to lift up, as a weakness and as a power, by students as well as their parents. Free School Meals for All takes away that visible disparity and puts all of our kids on the same level. It takes away that power of the more privileged and balances those weaknesses of the less privileged.

As food service employees we make a completely different connection with kids than teachers and school administration. We are the grandmas and favorite aunts and uncles of the school family. We spoil them and send them back to their classrooms. We feed them! We can change their whole day with a good healthy breakfast or lunch and a smile. We have the power to change their attitude, behavior, and mood. Sometimes a child’s bad behavior is just because they are hungry and a good hearty and healthy meal is all they need to get back on track. For many, the meals they get at school are the only meals they get, sometimes going without or with very little all weekend until they can get back to school on Monday. For many, school meals are their only source of fruits and vegetables that are so vital to their growth and development. These kids look forward to coming to school, they try harder to please, even if its just for the food. There is a great deal of power in food and in the hands of those who serve it.

I am not going to share one specific story but rather a larger picture of the positive effect “Free Meals for All” has had on our school environment, students, and communities. As I said before, “Free Meals for All” puts all students on an even playing field. Stigma’s come in many forms and affect all of our kids regardless of financial position. The stigma of low income just seems to be the one we talk about the most. Stigmas often bring out the worst in people and are used to assert power over those less fortunate. “Free Meals for All” eliminates those stigmas. Freedom from these stigmas starts in the cafeteria with free meals but spreads throughout the entire school environment. Stigmas may not go away completely but we can greatly diminish them. When the stigmas are reduced or eliminated students develop a confidence that was denied them before. Our district is made up of small towns where everybody knows each other’s business. However, with access to school meals without the various stigmas of society, kids don’t see each other’s social status. They develop friendships with each other based on what they have in common rather than the burden of where they are supposed to fit in society. There is less judgement! When “Free Meals for All” began, and all kids were entitled to free meals at school, I not only saw a gradual increase in participation from all students, I also saw kids from all walks of life thrive physically, mentally, intellectually, academically, and athletically. The stress of who they were supposed to be friends with was no longer apparent. The stigmas extended beyond just those whose parents couldn’t afford to pay, they also affected those who could. Some didn’t eat school meals because they didn’t want to appear like they “needed” them. Some didn’t want to be judged as “better than” or a snob. Others didn’t want to run up a big bill that their parents would have to pay. Perhaps some weren’t as well off as they seemed and not having money to pay for school meals exposed them. Some didn’t eat from fear that their peers would find out their parents couldn’t afford to pay, or were afraid to be embarrassed when asked to pay when they had no money. Some didn’t want their friends to know they actually received meals free or reduced. A child’s ability to pay is kept confidential by all cafeteria employees but these students, not really sure of this, had very real fears. The stress of getting school meals piled on to the stress of just trying to navigate school and life as a teenager was visible. Students didn’t engage with us very much, often avoiding all interaction. The shyness and uncertainty showed in their posture and voice. Once students became aware of and got comfortable with being able to get free meals regardless of their ability to pay, you could see the weight lifted from their shoulders. They stood taller, showed more confidence, engaged with us more on a friendly and personal level, and more of them started to eat. We were able to joke with them without risking offense, we could laugh with them over silly things. We could congratulate them on their achievements which they accepted more proudly and happily when they no longer feared we would hand them a bill. We saw their true personalities emerge. They began to share goals and dreams and what they would pursue after high school. Lower income students are usually our most picky eaters but free school meals allowed these kids to try new foods and discover new favorites and flavors which, believe it or not, opens new doors to new confidences, curiosities, and adventures in other areas of their lives as well. I’ve seen very introverted kids come out of their shells in the lunch room. I’ve seen bad behavior change in an instant when they begin to eat. I’ve seen their faces light up when we serve their favorite meals or they discover they really like something they’ve never had at home. They are more engaged with their peers and teachers, better behaved, more cooperative, more willing to help each other, happier, and eager to help with clean up duties after they finish eating, and they absorb what they’re being taught. We get to see their personalities develop and shine. We get to see them grow and mature. They are happy to see us. Full bellies make them happy and their happiness and excitement is contagious. Education is important but “Free Meals for All” was the best program to be given to our students. For some it made no difference, but for some it is a game changer.

Cuts to funding for free meals would cause most of our schools to go backwards. Back when we needed bail outs from the school budget or donations to bring our programs out of the red or to pay off unpaid student debt. When kids didn’t engage or didn’t eat for fear of being asked to pay or what their friends would think. Many families live just outside the financial guidelines and need every penny for basic living expenses. School meals become a budget cut for most families because they have other necessary expenses, sometimes unknowingly robbing their kids of good nutrition. Directors would spend far too much time processing applications, tracking down necessary information that never comes, sending out letter after letter for information parents don’t feel is any of our business, only to send out that last rejection letter when we don’t get everything we need to verify their status. Participation would drop denying students of a variety of healthy foods their parents cannot afford to buy and the good nutritional eating habits they learn from school meals.

Tariffs and trade wars, reimbursement cuts, cuts to programs like the Local Food Funds, and other funding cuts strictly limits the foods we need to run our programs. It greatly limits product availability and variety. Many of the fresh fruits and vegetables we offer simply do not grow here in the USA. Food supplies are limited as is but winters see a huge decrease in what is available to us from local (meaning nationwide) sources with gaps in harvesting seasons. These gaps for our most commonly grown produce are filled in with products from our neighboring countries. Here in the Northeast we cannot grow fresh fruits and vegetables year-round. Climate change brings another set of challenges to our “home grown” food supplies causing weather events that destroy fields and crops and an increase in diseases and resistance in pests among the many. Although federal guidelines encourage food grown and produced here, the USA simply cannot grow enough food to feed its population let alone provide additional food to schools. We would have to ask for changes in the rules and regulations from the USDA making school meals less healthy because we would not be able to meet the requirements of a reimbursable meal. Variety would all but disappear. School meals are healthy meals, sometimes the only healthy meal kids get. This would all change with funding cuts. Furthermore, additional costs would be added to already stressed and stretched school budgets and local taxes would most likely increase to cover these costs further stressing household budgets and increasing the tax burden on people who don’t even have kids in the schools. Necessary upgrades and repairs may have to be put on hold increasing those costs each time they are pushed to the back burner. Federal funding of the “Free Meals for All” program saves schools, towns, states, and families money and is an investment in our kid’s futures. It cuts down food insecurity. It helps support the funding of other much needed programs available in our schools and communities. It gives our students a head start to better futures, educations, and opportunities.

I’ve heard people lately say that American kids have some of the lowest test scores in the world. Well, if we want to make our kids smarter then we need to fuel their bodies and brains. If we want to make America healthy again then we need to start with feeding them healthy food. Please support free school meals for all and help end hunger in Maine.

Please call and/or write our representatives from Maine both at the state and federal levels in support of the School Meals for All program.

Thank you for reading.