This piece is part of the weekly series “Growing Forward: Insights for Building Better Food and Agriculture Systems,” presented by the Global Food Institute at the George Washington University and the nonprofit organization Food Tank. Each installment highlights forward-thinking strategies to address today’s food and agriculture related challenges with innovative solutions. To view more pieces in the series, click here.
In Michigan, one of the eight goals in our state’s Top 10 Strategic Education Plan is to improve the health, safety, and wellness of all learners.
To learn, children must have consistent access to healthy and tasty food. As Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, says, “Hungry kids can’t learn. School meals are just as important as textbooks or as transportation.” School breakfast and lunch programs play a vital role in helping to increase student attendance, student achievement, and long-term student outcomes.
With these benefits in mind, Michigan policymakers—including the Michigan Department of Education and the State Board of Education—have expanded school meals programs to support both children and local agriculture. Two programs that accomplish these goals are Michigan School Meals and 10 Cents a Meal.
Michigan School Meals is the state’s Healthy School Meals for All initiative that provides school meals free of charge to all students.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s meal program pandemic waivers allowed more children to eat these meals free of charge. When this program ended in the spring of 2022, many children once again had to pay for school breakfast and lunch. As a result, the number of meals served by schools dropped, and unpaid meal debt, typically arising when students don’t have sufficient funds in their accounts or have no cash to pay for a meal, once again became an issue.
The opportunity for a child to have a healthy breakfast and lunch remained a challenge for far too many Michigan families. For example, under the federal program, a family of three, which made just under US$4,000 per month, would have paid the full price, which averaged about US$90 per student per month nationally. About 30 percent of families experiencing food insecurity did not qualify for free or reduced priced meals under the federal program. So the program was falling short of our state’s needs.
To address these needs, the Michigan Legislature and Governor Gretchen Whitmer invested in Michigan School Meals, including the universal free school meals initiative for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. Now all public schools in the state can offer pre-K-12 students one free breakfast and one free lunch daily. This support helps to alleviate the financial burden for Michigan families and at the same time eliminate the stigma that can be associated with participating in school meal programs, particularly at the high school level.
Since the start of Michigan School Meals at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, there has been a 31 percent increase (115,086 more children) in the number of children eating school breakfast daily and a 25 percent increase (177,838 more children) in the number of children eating lunch daily.
Added benefits of our expanded school meals programs are the quality of the food that we serve children and the way that the program supports our local farmers. Michigan School Meals are nutritious and delicious and promote students eating fruits and vegetables every day as part of their meals, which also include whole grains, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy.
But it’s not just our children that benefit from nutritious meals. Local farmers benefit when Michigan schools work with them to provide healthy fruits and vegetables to school children. Michigan is proud to be the second most agriculturally diverse state in the nation. It only makes sense then that local schools work with farmers in their communities to feed children.
10 Cents a Meal is a state-funded program to provide schools and child care settings grant funds to incorporate Michigan-grown fruits, vegetables, and dry beans into meals for children. The goals of this grant include improving daily nutrition and eating habits for children through local purchasing and investing in Michigan agriculture and the related food business economy.
Local procurement provides “farmers a new market. It provides them a way to have an avenue to make money off the food they’re growing,” says Jessica Gudmunson, Co-Executive Director of the National Farm to School Network.
10 Cents a Meal also creates partnerships between farmers and schools/child care settings to get nutritious foods to students and to teach about the link between farms and the foods that students eat.
In Michigan, we are proud to be one of nine states with universal free meals programs statewide. This policy and 10 Cents a Meal keep our children and our agricultural industry healthy. We invite other states to look at how Michigan’s effort supports kids, farmers and better health for all.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
