Chantel Rodriguez, Staff Writer
cvr5570@psu.edu

As U.S. families begin the 2022-2023 school year, there are adjustments with the end of complimentary breakfast and lunches for several public schools nationwide.
Federal aid relief during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed schools to offer free meals to all public-school students, regardless of family income level. But many eligibility waivers ended over the summer, so opening with the 2022-2023 school year, several districts will no longer be providing all their free meals.
Families will revert to what they did before. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service says schools will again take applications and use a family’s income to determine whether they qualify for a free or reduced-priced meal for students.
“Families across the country are facing a complicated reality of having to choose between feeding their kids or filling up their gas tank or purchasing medicine,” stated Vince Hall, a Chief Government Relations Officer for Feeding America, a nonprofit network of food banks.
Many families and children have benefited from free meals, which leaves many wondering what will happen now without the waivers.
The U.S. Agriculture Department oversees school meal programs and explained that the number of participating students has skyrocketed through the years. Around 30 million kids a day were receiving free meals during the last two school years, compared to previous years before COVID-19, explained Cindy Long, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Administrator.
In Pennsylvania, State Senator Lindsey M. Williams, of Pittsburgh, D-38th Dist., and Minority Chairperson of the Senate Education Committee, stated in August that she would propose legislation to make free school meals available to every student regardless of families’ incomes.
“The return to paying for school breakfast and lunches is especially going to hurt families just above the income-eligibility guidelines for the free and reduced meals program,” Williams said in a report.
Williams continues, “Whether we’re helping a student who forgot their lunch at home, a parent struggling with the loss of a job, or a family just trying to make ends meet, ensuring that every student has access to breakfast and lunch with no shame or stigma is one of the most common sense ways we can help our kids be ready to learn every single day,”
Schools with a high proportion of low-income students can provide free meals for all students with federal funding from the Community Eligibility Provision, established by the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Local public school districts that offer complimentary breakfast and lunch during the 2022-2023 school year through the CEP program:
· Corry Area School District, all schools
· Erie School District, all schools
· Girard School District, all schools
· Iroquois School District, all schools
· Northwestern School District, all schools
· Union City Area School District, all schools
· Wattsburg Area Elementary Center
Other local schools that offer free meals for all:
· Eagle’s Nest Alternative Program
· Erie Rise Leadership Academy Charter School
· Mother Teresa Academy
· Patrick J. DiPaolo Student Success Center
· Perseus House Charter School of Excellence
· Robert Benjamin Wiley Community Charter School
Schools across Pennsylvania will now offer free breakfast for all students after pandemic relief funding has ended. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced that the state would take on the costs of breakfast fees for public and private school students for the rest of the 2022-2023 school year. The $21.5 million for the program is from last year’s school food service financial plan with additional state and federal funds—the free breakfast program is scheduled to start on October 1st.