The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently that provided roughly $1 billion in funding for the purchase of food by schools and food banks. 

And the , which reimburses tens of thousands of schools that provide free breakfast and lunch to all students, may tighten its requirements, potentially pushing some 12 million kids out of the program.

These moves come at the same time the House Republican budget plan to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The program fed more than per month nationwide in 2023. In 2022, 40% were  

This recent shift reflects a stark reversal of earlier, nationwide efforts to keep families fed during the pandemic. Many districts, such as Baltimore, organized days after schools were shuttered in March 2020 with no identification or personal information required. Those initiatives led to the nation’s food insecurity rate dropping to a when it reached 10.2% in 2021, down from a 14.9% high a decade earlier, according to the USDA.

It has since crept back up to 13.5% and now, five years after schools utilized USDA waivers to deliver meals in , they are bracing for what could be massive cuts from the federal government.

Elizabeth A. Marchetta, executive director of food and nutrition services for Baltimore City Public Schools, said 31 campuses — serving 19,000 children — would lose out on free breakfast and lunch if the Community Eligibility Provision changes go through. They are among 393 schools and who would be shut out. 

“It would be devastating,” Marchetta said. “These are critical funds. If we are not being reimbursed for all of the meals we’re serving … the money has to come from somewhere else in the school district, so that is really not great.”

Nearly benefited from the Community Eligibility Provision in the 2023-24 school year. The program reimburses schools that provide universal free meals based on the percentage of their students who automatically qualify for free and reduced-price lunch because their families receive other types of assistance, like SNAP. 

In 2023, after the COVID-era policy ended where any student could receive a free school meal regardless of income, President Biden lowered the percentage of high-need students required for a school to qualify from , greatly expanding participation. 

House GOP Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington now seeks to . The budget proposal would also require all students applying for free and reduced-price meals to submit documentation verifying their family income.

, a barometer of food insecurity among students, is already on the rise. It will almost certainly increase if universal school meals disappear for students whose families make too much to qualify for free and reduced-price lunch but too little to afford to buy meals at school. At the same time, kids who are eligible for free and reduced-price meals could lose that benefit if the required paperwork becomes harder. 

In the fall of 2023, across 808 school districts, the median amount of school meal debt was $5,495. By the fall of 2024, that amount reached $6,900 across 766 districts, a 25% increase, according to the .

It was just $2,000 a decade earlier. A trio of Democratic senators is the , with Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman saying in 2023, “‘School lunch debt’ is a term so absurd that it shouldn’t even exist. That’s why I’m proud to introduce this bill to cancel the nation’s student meal debt and stop humiliating kids and penalizing hunger.”

Research shows students benefit mightily from free meals: those who attend schools that adopted the Community Eligibility Provision saw compared to those who did not. Free in-school meals are also credited for boosting attendance among low-income children, improving classroom behavior and

Joel Berg, the CEO of , said further cuts will greatly harm the poorest students. 

“Over the last few years, things have gone from bad to worse,” he said. “We were all raised seeing Frank Capra movies, where, in the end everything works out. But that’s not how the real world works. In the real world, when the economy gets a cold, poor people get cancer.”

the number of Americans who didn’t have enough to eat over two one-week periods between August-September 2021 and August-September 2024. The states with the highest rates of food insecure children were Texas at 23.8%, Oklahoma at 23.2% and Nebraska at 22.6%. Georgia and Arkansas both came in at 22.4%. 

The USDA slashed the $660 million — it allowed states to purchase local foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, for distribution to schools and child care institutions — and $500 million from the , which supported food banks nationwide. 

Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association, said that as families struggle with the high cost of groceries, the government should be doing more — not less — to bolster school meals and other food aid programs. 

“We’re urging Congress not only to protect the federal Community Eligibility Provision, but to expand it,” Pratt-Heavner said. “Ideally, all students should have access to free school breakfast and lunch as part of their education.” 

SNAP benefits stood at $4.80 per person per day through 2020 before jumping to more than after they were adjusted for rising food and other costs. Even then, the higher amount was not enough to in most locations. 

Republicans in Congress seek to cut the program by over the next nine years, possibly by returning to the pre-pandemic allotment of $4.80 and/or expanding work-related requirements, said Salaam Bhatti, SNAP director at t. 

Another possibility, he said, is that SNAP costs could be pushed onto states — including those that can’t afford them. 

“This would be an unfunded mandate,” Bhatti said. “States would have to take away from their discretionary spending to offset the cost and if it is not a mandate, then states in rural America and in the South that don’t have the budgets just won’t do it.” 

Food-related funding decreases come as the child tax credit, created to help parents offset the cost of raising children, is also facing uncertainty, said Megan Curran, the director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.

The American Rescue Plan increased the amount of the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600 for qualifying children under age 6, and $3,000 for those under age 18. Many taxpayers received monthly advance payments in the second half of 2021, instead of waiting until tax filing season to receive the full benefits. The move The expanded child tax credit was allowed to lapse post-pandemic and now even the $2,000 credit could revert back to just $1,000. 

All food-related and tax benefit cuts — plus the unknowns of Trump-era tariffs — will leave some Americans particularly vulnerable, Curran said. 

“It’s shaping up to be a very precarious time for families,” she said, “especially families with children.”

“During the pandemic, we felt compelled to respond swiftly to the isolation of families with young children by meeting families where they are,” says Lindsey Lockman Dougherty, an advisor on early childhood development for Save the Children. “And in each case, the efforts became so popular and appreciated that we are continuing and expanding the approach to reach the most isolated and underserved members of the community.”

Here are three stories from America’s byways.

A Tribute to Dad

Peggy Hamby’s official title is director of Food Service & Nutrition for the public school system of Morgan County, Tennessee, but on Tuesdays she goes the extra mile—and then some. Riding Gus the Bus, she travels the winding roads of the county, delivering not just food but books and educational materials to 250-300 families as part of the local schools’ partnership with Save the Children.

“All the kids know that Gus comes on Tuesdays,” she says. “It’s something to look forward to.” For Hamby, Gus’s mission is especially personal; the bus is named for her late father, who worked as a mail carrier in the community. She and the bus drivers decorate the vehicle and dress up for Christmas in July and Hawaiian Day, among other celebrations.

She knows everybody on the route and describes a family living temporarily in a motel, numerous seniors raising their grandchildren and a 16-year-old who watches three younger siblings—who all rely on the spaghetti, chicken fajitas and other prepared meals as well as groceries, including fresh local vegetables courtesy of . Hamby points out that distributing food in this manner is only possible because USDA restrictions have been temporarily relaxed during the pandemic, but she hopes, on behalf of the families, that things stay this way.

Tamara Sandberg, Save the Children’s U.S. Food Security and Nutrition Senior Advisor, adds that the USDA’s has allowed for creative solutions in offering enrichment opportunities to children, even when they do not consume the meals on site. Save the Children and partners are urging Congress to extend USDA’s authority to issue nationwide waivers through the 2022-23 school year to help child nutrition providers maintain critical flexibility in how they reach kids with the food they need.

Turning on a Dime

Save the Children Kindergarten Readiness Ambassador Kim Bolling admits she was less than thrilled at first about the prospect of driving Rosie the Readiness Bus around Perry County, Kentucky. The narrow, bumpy roads made her nervous, but she knew something had to change. Some areas in the county lack any preschool programs, and attendance had been less than stellar at the three Play & Learn Group locations set up in community settings by the local school district and Save the Children.

Bringing food, four books per family each month and family engagement programming to families made a lot of sense, especially when families lack transportation, along with phone, internet and other basics. “My family didn’t have a lot when I was growing up,” Bolling says. “As the child in a single-parent home, I would have benefited from a program like this.”

Just like ice cream trucks, the colorfully decorated vehicles attract children of all ages, but the organization has discovered an added benefit. In the most remote areas of the community, some families can be wary of unmarked vehicles approaching their home to deliver home-based early learning programs. Murals on the side signal their friendly intentions.

Rosie got rolling just as the pandemic hit, and Bolling had added motivation to brave the roads—families in her community needed help. “We never stayed stationary,” Bolling recalls. “I never thought about the risk.” Often in the company of other family-serving professionals, Bolling offers daily “classroom on wheels” programs—Movement Monday, Try It Tuesday and so on—to 40 families, who receive books, art and school supplies, sanitizer, masks, kits and occasional extras like snacks and rubber duckies.

In partnership with Susan Sizemore, one of Save the Children’s Collective Impact advisors, families received food boxes through until last May when the USDA program ended. On one especially cold day, every mom along the route was so moved by Rosie’s appearance that they each wept. Many organizations provide contributions to Save the Children, including board games and, once, a tiny dress from the Salvation Army turned out to be one little girl’s favorite birthday present. Sidewalk chalk, which became a scarce commodity early in the pandemic, proved especially popular.

And those narrow Kentucky roads? “Now I can turn Rosie on a dime,” Bolling smiles.

A Learning Experience on Wheels

The largest private sector employer in Cocke County, Tenn recently ceased production. Standing close to the North Carolina border, the county has high rates of substance abuse, child abuse and other woes that often accompany poverty. Jennifer Ellison of the Cocke County Cradle to Career Coalition—initiated by Save the Children—says an important element of her job is to coordinate targeted, collective impact approaches that advance learning outcomes for all children in the community, to keep kids and families from falling through the cracks. Since “kids can’t learn if they’re hungry,” supplying food and meals is critical to addressing barriers to learning for many children in the county. Until last May, they also distributed food boxes through the USDA program. Since that time, the community is taking new approaches to increase access to food and learning resources, including a brand-new mobile unit.

The ABC Bus (it stands for alphabet, books and creativity) is covered with pictures of mountains, bears, apples and butterflies designed by an alumna from the local high school. Ellison says it’s equipped for everything children need to learn—activity areas, learning materials, digital devices, a generator, Wi-Fi, heating and air conditioning. Additionally, the bus is equipped with storage to support food distributions throughout the community.

Stops on the ABC Bus’s route will include the Walmart parking lot, public libraries and public housing in and around the community. In areas of the county where there have been challenges to reach families, families have been eager to come out and engage when the ABC Bus rolls into their neighborhood. Ellison mentions a father and his shy son who visited the bus during a recent stop in their neighborhood. After an hour of carefully exploring the bus together inside and out, the boy’s only words were a cheerful bye-bye when he left.

Ellison and her ABC Bus sidekick, Kathy Holt, both agree that one of the best outcomes from the initiative has been the tidal wave of volunteerism it has incited. “I’ve asked 12 people for help,” says Holt, “and 12 people have said yes.”

Disclosure: Vroom was created by Bezos Family Foundation, which published the former Early Learning Nation.

Food is powerful. Food can trigger memories. It can bring families close together and it can help us connect to other cultures. That, in a nutshell (or a filo puff), is the story of Krieger’s decades-long crusade to help America learn to love healthy food. “Food can open doors to relationships and to understanding people better,” says the registered dietitian and nutritionist, best-selling cookbook author and host of public television’s . “It is a very natural portal to community.”

When Krieger talks nutrition, she often encounters deeply rooted food anxieties, some of which she has experienced firsthand, but her resolute faith in vegetables—coupled with a refreshing lack of judgment—helps families to discover healthy meals together.

Here are her five tips for parents and caregivers looking to achieve or restore food sanity:

1. Erase the idea of a children’s menu. Krieger understands that different people have different taste preferences. “We’re born with likes and dislikes,” she acknowledges, “but a lot of it has to do with exposure.” Parents often reflect on their own histories with food and jump to conclusions about what their children will enjoy. One conclusion to avoid is labeling certain dishes as appropriate or inappropriate for the little ones.

“If I could,” she says, “I would take an eraser and erase the children’s option off every restaurant menu. We really have invented this ‘kid food’ thing. Historically, and if you look at different cultures around the world, kids are eating what the rest of the family is eating.” She adds that the children’s dishes might be slightly less seasoned or a softer texture, depending on their age. (Also, for the record, she has nothing against chicken fingers.)

2. Don’t give up on picky eaters. The home version of the children’s menu is the nightly plate of plain noodles with butter. How do you introduce variety? Krieger recommends remembering what it’s like to be two years old: “When you’re that age,” she says, “You don’t really have much control over your life. Imagine if someone could pick you up and move you. But they cannot force you to swallow something, so that is one thing that you can control.”

Don’t fall into the trap of begging or tricking children into eating a dish they’re refusing; that just fuels the power struggle. Krieger’s daughter, now a college student, has always disliked chicken, and when she used to refuse any of the many chicken dishes Krieger cooked, she was allowed to eat whatever else was on the table or, at most, Krieger would open up a can of chickpeas to accommodate her. Her daughter still doesn’t like chicken, but along the way she has developed an appetite for diverse flavors.

“Try looking at taste as something that is dynamic, not set in stone,” Krieger advises. “They might not like mushrooms or asparagus the first time, but then they might like it the fifth time. There’s research that shows it takes up to 12 exposures.”

3. Visit the farmer’s market. The produce section of the grocery store can be full of wonders, but there’s something magical about the local farmer’s market, where the growers are often right there displaying the products of their labor. Krieger goes weekly. “I have a conversation with my farmer and find out what’s there, what’s coming up, what he’s growing now.”

Her favorite farmer’s market remained open—with precautions—throughout the pandemic, and she calls it “one of my tethers of happiness.” And here’s where Krieger reveals a truth that might be unsurprising but nonetheless caught me off guard: “I often think of myself as a vegetable marketer,” she says. “It might appear like I’m talking about a fabulous, easy-to-make recipe, but secretly I’m doing it as a way to get people to eat vegetables.”

4. Entertain—without wearing yourself out. Krieger’s demeanor on TV is upbeat and confident, but she confesses that, like many driven people, it’s “sort of that duck thing, that the duck is just gliding along the water, but underneath they’re paddling like crazy. So there’s definitely a part of me that feels not always calm and not always soothed but actually sort of harried and sometimes insecure about everything.”

She’s learning to balance her ambitions and her need to unwind. When it comes to having company over, she tries to go easy on herself. “If you’re feeling stressed, like you’re having to do a million last-minute items, then you’re not going to be able to really engage with guests in the way that you’re hoping to.” Her suggestion: laying out the fixings for a home “taco night” or grain bowl, which can be sorted ahead of time. It’s festive and fun and healthy and has the added advantage of letting people assemble their own dishes according to dietary preferences or food allergies.

5. Organize a food festival in your community. Asked about how she chose to study nutrition in college and graduate school, Krieger initially makes it sound simple: “I always just loved eating.” But when she adds, “And in my family, food was love, and I was very well loved,” she acknowledges early struggles to with overeating, undereating and disordered eating. “I found a place where I could love food in a healthy way.”

By the time she had a family of her own, she wanted to share what she’d learned—not just on TV but in her neighborhood. She started a wellness committee in her daughter’s public school, recruiting some other parents to join her. “One of our initiatives was a tasting experience for the kids in the lunchroom. We roasted cauliflower and served it before the school lunch.” More than bestselling cookbooks or hosting a popular series, she seems especially proud that, years later, one of the participants approached her on the street to thank her for the cauliflower.

Krieger’s approachability onscreen and off spills over into her vibrant online presence. On and , she solicits cooking suggestions and perspectives, which she then incorporates into her show and books. “I’m always learning from people,” she says. “I try to approach every single day and every moment as a learner.”