No Kid Hungry North Carolina works to make childhood hunger a thing of the past in the Tarheel State. We’re working to end child hunger by connecting kids to effective but under-utilized federal nutrition programs like school breakfast, summer meals, and afterschool meals.
Check out our programs for more information on how what we’re doing.
Schools are at the center of our communities and our kids’ lives. That’s why school meal programs are at the heart of No Kid Hungry’s work.
It is critical for students to start their day off right with a healthy breakfast. The School Breakfast Program, created in 1975 is a federally-funded program operated by school districts across the country to facilitate making a balanced breakfast more accessible for all students.
Participation by traditional school breakfast can be hindered by many factors, including:
More than a quarter million NC public school students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals eat school lunch, but not school breakfast — even though it is available to them, and they likely need it.
But that number is shrinking. Since No Kid Hungry NC started in 2011, the percentage of free and reduced price-eligible students eating school lunch who are also eating school breakfast has grown from about 40% to almost 60% — a powerful indicator that school breakfast is becoming more accessible for students.
No Kid Hungry NC’s school breakfast program success stories include the NC School Breakfast Challenge, and the 2018-19 Breakfast After the Bell Initiative grants with the Office of the Governor and other partners.
Many barriers stand between students and eating school breakfast, from transportation to cafeteria logistics to stigma. Innovative Breakfast After the Bell methods of serving school breakfast — including Breakfast in the Classroom, Grab and Go, and Second Chance Breakfast — can break down these barriers. No Kid Hungry NC is working with nutrition directors, principals, superintendents, and more to implement these creative, low-cost ways of increasing school breakfast participation across the state.
Breakfast After the Bell makes breakfast a part of the school day for all students, and is proven to raise participation levels on average to as high as 90 percent. And the more students who eat school breakfast, the more students getting the benefits of starting their day with a healthy meal: better academic performance, more days of school attended, fewer discipline issues, and fewer tardies.
These methods are designed to increase access to the School Breakfast Program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and plays a crucial role in making sure kids get the food they need to focus and excel in the classroom.
Research shows that school breakfast is good for kids, classroom, and communities. Children who eat a good breakfast tend to perform between in school, have better attendance, and exhibit fewer behavior problems.
Here are five ways school breakfast benefits kids:
Every time we feed a child, we’re unlocking their ability to grow up to become the next future teachers, scientists and entrepreneurs. To learn more, the Study on Chronic Absenteeism and Breakfast After the Bell is new research that shows the impact serving breakfast as part of the school day has on student outcomes. In addition, the No Kid Hungry Starts with Breakfast report describes a social impact analysis that examines the impact school breakfast has on kids and classrooms.
We know that students who participate in school breakfast achieve higher test scores and attend school more regularly. That’s why we work to increase participation as a part of our strategy to end childhood hunger by incorporating Breakfast After the Bell. We provide schools with necessary technical expertise and grants, working with them on ways to increase the number of kids by incorporating breakfast as a part of the school day.
Learn more about breakfast after the bell models like Breakfast in the Classroom, Grab and Go and Second Chance Breakfast.
School lunch offers students a healthy, balanced meal that they can rely upon during the school day. The National School Lunch Program is the nation’s second largest food and nutrition assistance program and feeds more than 30 million children each day. Healthy school lunches boost academic performance and closes the opportunity gap for children across the country.
At No Kid Hungry Kentucky, we know that one of the best ways to ensure that students who rely on school meals have access to them is by offering them at no cost.
There are several funding options for expanding no cost school meals. To learn more about those options, we encourage you to visit the links below:
Summer is a time for connection, exploration, and fun! Summer meal programs make sure children and young people have the nutrition they need to do just that. During the school year, meals are available to kids through school breakfast and lunch. But kids lose critical access to meals during the summer when schools are out. To fill this gap, many local schools and community organizations across Kentucky operate summer meal programs to provide food to kids at no cost. Summer meal programs are operated locally, overseen by the Kentucky Department of Education, and administered and funded by the US Department of Agriculture.
Summer meals haven’t been reaching all the children and young people who experience food insecurity. Without reliable sources of healthy food throughout the summer, kids who live with families experiencing financial hardship are at greater risk of returning to school further behind academically, which can have exponential ramifications year after year.
Another reason for low summer meals participation is limited transportation. In both rural and urban areas, if parents work during the day, children may be unable to get to the locations where meals and activities happen. That’s why we’ve made it one of our top priorities to support summer grocery benefits and non-congregate meal service wherever possible. Non-congregate models like grab & go pick-up or delivery allow children to eat at home and provide more flexibility and support to families, and grocery benefits give households more buying power to cover additional meals at home.
For the first time, programs in rural areas may be eligible to serve non-congregate meals. The passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 permanently authorized a non-congregate meal service option for rural communities without access to a congregate site. It also created a permanent nationwide Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program (Summer EBT) starting summer 2024 that will provide grocery benefits to families of children and young people eligible for free or reduced-price school meals.
Together, rural non-congregate meals, Summer EBT, and traditional congregate meals form a Summer Meals program that can better combat summer hunger.
No Kid Hungry Kentucky has joined communities across the state who are offering summer meals to provide support, guidance, and funding to ensure children and young people have access to needed food when school is out. Visit our Resources page to learn more!
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest federal nutrition program in the United States, feeding roughly 40 million people each year. It is also the largest child anti-hunger program, with nearly half of SNAP recipients being children and two-thirds of SNAP benefits going to households with children. SNAP provides monthly benefits to help support family’s food budgets to ensure they are receiving adequate nutrition.
When kids are enrolled in SNAP, they get the food they need to succeed both at home and at school, but many eligible families may not know they qualify or how to sign up. Any household (defined as a family, an individual, or any combination) that purchases food and prepares meals together may qualify for assistance depending on combined income.
Citizens of the United States or non-citizens who are legally residing in the U.S. are eligible to apply for benefits. Non-citizen parents may be able to receive benefits for their children if they are citizens as well. To learn more about benefits and eligibility, we encourage you to visit the Kynect website.
It’s important to note that public charge rules DO NOT apply to programs like SNAP, Pandemic EBT, WIC, and school meal programs. Participating in one or more of these programs will not affect an individual’s immigration status or chances of receiving legal permanent residency in the future.
Raising awareness about SNAP and providing needed support during the application process is crucial in ensuring families and children have adequate resources needed to thrive.
By addressing common barriers to SNAP access through outreach and assistance, we’re ensuring more people who already qualify have the information they need to apply and receive benefits.
One way to do this is by supporting SNAP outreach through schools.
School districts can play an important role in supporting access to SNAP as a trusted information source for students, parents and caregivers. An added benefit is that increasing SNAP access supports the whole school community and helps schools!
Increasing SNAP access for eligible families helps to:
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