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Full Plates Full Potential is the leading organization in Maine working to end childhood food insecurity through advocacy for pragmatic policy solutions and support for under-resourced federal child nutrition programs. At Full Plates, we believe federal nutrition assistance programs are the most powerful tools we have to end childhood food insecurity. When these programs are protected, funded, and implemented via best practices, they can transform not only individual lives but entire systems. In Maine, a rural state with the highest rate of child hunger in New England, we’re seeing just how effective that transformation is for communities.
Even as federal nutrition programs face renewed threats in Washington, D.C., Maine has emerged as a model of what’s possible. In 2022, Maine became one of the first states in the country to pass universal school meals, ensuring that every public school student has access to breakfast and lunch—no paperwork, no stigma, no questions asked. Participation has soared. With it, so has the flow of federal dollars back into Maine’s school nutrition departments. Reducing administrative burdens frees up capacity, and higher participation increases economies of scale. This change has also allowed us to transform our food offerings to students and to use the power of school meal procurement to energize the Maine food economy.
Maine is proving that fed is not the same as nourished. Through close partnerships with school nutrition teams and local food producers, Full Plates Full Potential is helping to shift what’s on the tray—and what it represents. Gone are the days of cardboard pizza; crusts are now made with whole wheat pizza dough from The Good Crust, a Maine company using local grains, and topped with sauce from The Maine Marinara Collective, crafted from regionally grown produce. Sloppy Joes haven’t disappeared—they’ve evolved. Working hard to make sure Portland’s African diaspora immigrant community has access to Halal meals at school, Portland’s school nutrition program became the first school district in the nation to offer daily Halal-certified meals to all grades. Ground beef now graces the menu as a Central African-inspired spiced beef served with smashed kidney beans and cabbage slaw—flavorful, comforting, and culturally relevant.
This work matters because what we feed kids today shapes the adults and the economy of tomorrow. When kids are fed meals that meet their nutritional and cultural needs, they are set up for success. Hungry kids are more likely to struggle academically, miss school, and experience long-term health problems. The effects of childhood food insecurity don’t end there. These outcomes follow them into adulthood, reducing lifetime earnings and increasing reliance on public health and social safety net programs. Ending childhood hunger is not just a moral imperative—it’s a smart investment in our shared future.
Schools are a powerful place to start. Public schools are often the largest restaurant in town—serving hundreds or even thousands of meals each day. That kind of purchasing power can be a force for economic growth. When school nutrition programs source food locally, they create stable, large-scale markets for farmers, food entrepreneurs, and processors. That’s what’s happening in Maine, where universal school meals are fueling a local food economy and ensuring public dollars stay in the community.
None of this happens overnight. These wins are the product of steady, pragmatic advocacy, supported by hands-on implementation work. For more than a decade, Full Plates Full Potential has worked to pass incremental, achievable policy changes—like School Meals for All—and paired that work with funding, training, and technical assistance for the people making change happen on the ground.
We believe every child has the right to nutritious, appealing food. But we also know that values alone aren’t always enough to move lawmakers. Sometimes, the most effective argument is an economic one–hungry kids can’t learn, and that has costs for families, schools, and our economy as a whole. This is the argument that helped us build a strong bipartisan coalition to pass School Meals for All.
Although we are currently faced with defending this critical progress, we continue to push forward on our quest to transform the school food system by strengthening the local producers in our state. Creating a locally based school food ecosystem will not only bring higher-quality meals to our children but also develop our economic resilience. The work in Maine is still unfolding, but the impact is clear. When federal nutrition programs are strengthened—not weakened—and when advocacy is matched with local support and implementation, we make real progress toward ending childhood food insecurity.
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Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
