Two state legislators want to permanently provide free breakfast and lunch for all school students in Pennsylvania.

Federal waivers that eliminated financial eligibility guidelines for the meals expired at the end of June, returning limits to distributing free and reduced meals and increasing the barriers for thousands of kids to access nutritious food at school.

According to the School Nutrition Association of Pennsylvania, about 14% of the state’s school-aged children regularly experience food insecurity, which can be mitigated by ensured access to meals at school. Research shows that school-provided meals boost kids’ healthy food intake, decrease childhood obesity and support better learning outcomes.

Last week, the Biden administration announced a years-long goal of making universal school meals permanent, but it still requires the approval of a divided Congress. The strategy starts by expanding access to free meals to 9 million children by 2032. While anti-hunger experts praised the effort, they also said many families cannot wait for help.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf said in August that the state would use $21.5 million in unused federal pandemic funds to provide universal free breakfasts to any of Pennsylvania’s 1.7 million public and private school students who want them. The program started last week and runs through June 30, the end of the fiscal year.

State Sen. Lindsey Williams and Rep. Emily Kinkead, both Allegheny County Democrats, want to establish a permanent, $275 million program to provide K-12 students with free breakfast and lunch.

Dubbed the Universal School Meal Fund, their proposals in the Senate and House aim to combat child hunger and foster academic success by providing consistent access to healthy meals without stress or stigma.

“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,” Williams said during a news conference last week.

For two years during the pandemic, the federal government expanded eligibility standards to provide free breakfasts and lunches to all students. In Pennsylvania, according to the Department of Education, the number of kids who ate meals at school rose by 16%, especially for breakfast.

At Butler Area School District 49.86% of district families applied and qualified for free and reduced meals in 2021-22. Before the pandemic, in 2019-20, 46.42% families qualified. As of Aug. 1, 46.30% of families in the district qualified.

One of the lessons school administrators learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that eligibility standards for free school breakfasts and lunches don’t quite meet the actual need.

We urge swift action of the proposal by Williams and Kinkead to ensure that as many Pennsylvania students as possible have unrestrained access to the nutrition that they need to be healthy, to grow and to learn.

— JGG