Parents in most Modesto City Schools are breathing a major sigh of relief this year, because they no longer have to pay for breakfast or lunch for their kids.
It's part of a federal program for school districts in low-income neighborhoods.
"No money is exchanged, no cash is required," Criss Atwell, the Senior Director of Nutrition Services for Modesto City Schools said.
No money. No questions. No paperwork. Just food.
"Because we hit a certain mark, a certain threshold, 100 percent of our students get free lunch. They don't have to worry about money. We don't have to worry about the forms and getting them back from the parents," Nathan Schar, Principal of Johansen High School, said.
The program is happening at 31 of 34 schools across the Modesto City School District, who hit the threshold of high-free or reduced-lunch numbers. Many of those schools had free or reduced lunch rates as high as 85 percent.
"This could be the only meal that students have access to," Atwell said.
Because so many families were signed up, most of their schools qualified for a federal program called the "Community Eligibility Provision", which is money set aside to cover breakfast and lunch in low income school districts across the nation.
"While we've always been making a difference, knowing that we can feed all of these students, this whole team in nutrition services really loves the CEP program and the district does as well," Atwell said.
Schar says this is a big deal because many times, these are only warm meals some kids will get in a day.
"It's sad. Where they're coming from, a lot of these kids, their parents are working nights, or they're working in the morning, or they're taking care of their brothers and sisters," Schar said. "So they weren't getting breakfast and they weren't having lunch. So that's why this is wonderful."
And the free lunch program, locked in for the next four years no matter the family's income level, is meant to give kids a little more brainpower for the classroom.
"We're trying to get these kids to go places in the classroom, where they're not going to be able to go unless they're fed," he said.
So far, it's working, with even more kids hopping in the lunch lines.
"Super excited. I don't think you're going to find anybody that's going to question that," Schar said.
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