Pandemic Meal Service – By the Numbers
Districts
Reporting
Million
Total Meals Served
Million
Meals Served to Children
Million
Adult Meals Served
COVID-19
The Urban School Food Alliance remains focused on helping to ensure students have reliable and consistent access to nutritious meals, and we are supporting our member districts as they transition their regular operations to meet the needs of this time of crisis. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds in our country, we are also committed to supporting our broader community and those who are helping to connect kids and their families to the food they need. We are sharing these resources with the hope that they will be helpful to community organizations and schools across the country. New resources will be added to this page as they become available.
School Nutrition
Resources
- USDA | USDA FNS Response to COVID-19
- School Nutrition Association | SNA Member Resources: Coronavirus Disease
- No Kid Hungry | COVID-19 Child Nutrition Resources
- Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy | Serving Students During the Coronavirus: Best Practices
- Urban School Food Alliance | COVID-19 Response Best Practices For Meal Service
- Urban Institute | Strategies and Challenges in Feeding Out-of-School Students
- Kaiser Permanente | Playbook for School Reopening
- Friends of the Earth | Healthier school food is key to fighting COVID-19 and systemic racism
- Urban School Food Alliance | Universal free meals explanation and benefits
Community
Resources
- UnidosUS | Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources (English and Spanish)
- UnidosUS | Explaining COVID-19 Relief for Latino Families (English and Spanish)
- Rockefeller Foundation | Coronavirus and Food Access: Four Questions Every Community Needs to Answer
- CDC | Schools, Workplaces & Community Locations (Multiple Languages)
- GovTech | A Resource Guide to Coronavirus for Government Leaders
- Pilot Light | Family Meals
Coronavirus:
In the News
Prism: Families call for universal free lunch as Congress extends meal program through the summer
Five days before COVID-19 nutrition waivers were set to expire, President Joe Biden signed the Keep Kids Fed Act into law. The bill, which Congress passed on June 24, would increase reimbursements to schools and child care centers and grant access to summer meals...
Urban School Food Alliance Responds: President Signs Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022
On Saturday, June 25, 2022, the President signed into law the Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022, which extends certain flexibilities for child nutrition programs and provides temporary increases in reimbursement rates for school meals and meals provided at child care centers....
Smerconish: We Must Preserve the Food Security Safety Net in Our Schools
School meal programs have prevented children from hunger and malnutrition for decades. Available in almost every public and private school in the country, school meals operate under federal nutrition guidelines and a federal per meal reimbursement rate based on family...
NewsNation: Federal free school meal waivers set to expire June 30
On July 1, the universal free school lunch will be no more. The federal pandemic-era waivers that provided free meals to all students, regardless of economic status, is expiring June 30. Since former President Donald Trump signed the COVID-19 aid package in 2020, 10...
Bloomberg Law: Hunger ‘Cliff’ Looms as Pandemic School-Lunch Aid Is Running Out
Schools and child-feeding sites are bracing for rising costs and supply disruptions as federal meal subsidies run out in weeks. The food assistance, in the form of Agriculture Department waivers authorized since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, allows schools and...
Vox: A program that helps millions of hungry kids is about to expire
One of the most fundamental and intuitive facts about learning is that it’s hard to focus, or really do much of anything, if you’re hungry. There’s a hierarchy of needs, and stomachs come out on top. Yet youth advocates are staring down a chilling deadline. June 30 is...
The Urban School Food Alliance Appalled at Congress for School Nutrition Omnibus Failure
The Urban School Food Alliance shares in the frustration and disappointment with other advocacy groups that Congress neglected, through the omnibus, to include the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture to extend the waivers needed to help children and families as...
Washington Post: Pandemic expansion of school lunch program appears slated to end suddenly
Coronavirus pandemic-era federal programs meant to feed schoolchildren are likely to expire in the coming weeks, after top Republicans objected to their inclusion as part of a still-forming package to fund the federal government...
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The latest news and headlines from Urban School Food Alliance
Prism: Families call for universal free lunch as Congress extends meal program through the summer
Jun 30, 2022
Five days before COVID-19 nutrition waivers were set to expire, President Joe Biden signed the Keep Kids Fed Act...
Urban School Food Alliance Responds: President Signs Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022
Jun 25, 2022
On Saturday, June 25, 2022, the President signed into law the Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022, which extends certain...
Smerconish: We Must Preserve the Food Security Safety Net in Our Schools
Jun 21, 2022
School meal programs have prevented children from hunger and malnutrition for decades. Available in almost every...
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