This week, Massachusetts, under the leadership of the Healey-Driscoll administration, passed a state budget that includes PERMANENT funding for universal free school meals.
If this provision is signed into law, it will literally change lives. No child in the Commonwealth will ever again have to wonder how to get though the school day on an empty stomach. This makes me incredibly proud to be from Massachusetts.
Thank you Speaker Ron Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka, Senator Sal DiDomenico, Representative Andy Vargas, and all the amazing advocates who made this happen—including Project Bread and the Feed Kids Coalition.
We’ve been working towards free universal schools meals for years. But another one of the sad truths about child hunger is that it actually gets worse in the summer when school is out.
That’s why earlier this month, I joined Project Bread for our annual Summer Food Rocks Tour, visiting free summer meal sites in Turners Falls, Greenfield and Worcester—just three of the hundreds of places available to kids and teens across Massachusetts.
I’m incredibly grateful for USDA, nonprofits like Project Bread, state legislators, and all the meal site sponsors who work tirelessly to make the summer meals program a success. During this year’s tour, I got another chance to see up close the joy kids get after getting a healthy, nutritious meal. That means everything!
Every child deserves the dignity to be able to eat when they’re hungry.
I think it’s a basic idea, and something we know works. Look at what happened when kids had access to universal meals during the pandemic and we increased our investment in anti-poverty programs: hunger went down! We shouldn’t be going backwards.
And we need to make sure these meals are both nutritious and delicious. That’s why I’m working to increase reimbursement levels so schools can serve locally grown, scratch-cooked meals that taste good and that kids actually want to eat.
So, whether kids are grabbing free meals in Northampton, Worcester or somewhere in between this summer—or now, with permanent free school meals, every day during the school year—they should know that I and so many other dedicated leaders in Massachusetts have their backs. And we’re on the same page.
Together, we’re following the roadmap to end hunger produced at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, that President Biden held last September, at my urging, including recommendations for how to close gaps in our current safety net to combat childhood hunger.
This is an ambitious journey. But it’s possible. And today’s news on universal free school meals and my experience on the Summer Food Rocks Tour shows me that we are moving forward! It’s important that government—at the local state and federal level—works to get things done. That’s why I’m committed to solving problems like hunger, and proud to be your representative in Congress as we work together to ensure that all children in this country have enough to eat.
James P. McGovern
Member of Congress