(ConservativeHub.com) – Adelle Settle, a mother from Virginia, is reportedly working to ensure that students have access to free meals at school. She has taken up this cause because the district has accumulated millions of dollars in unpaid school lunch debt over the past few months.
During an interview on “Good Morning America,” Settle emphasized the significance of food in children’s lives. Her primary objective is to ensure that no student goes without a lunch simply because the school refuses to provide it due to outstanding lunch debt. As a result, she’s been raising money to settle lunch debt of students in her area.
According to Good Morning America, the Department of Agriculture states that in the fiscal year 2019, nearly 5 billion school lunches were provided in the US through the National School Lunch Program. Before 2020, 74 percent of these meals were provided either for free or at a substantially reduced price. However, in fiscal years 2020 and 2021, a higher number of the meals distributed were either free or offered at a reduced cost. This shift was largely facilitated by the USDA waiver, which allowed students to receive meals completely free of charge.
During the current school year, there has been a significant increase in lunch debt, totaling 19.2 million dollars since November of the previous year, as reported in the 2023 School Nutrition Trends Report published by the School Nutrition Association. Lori Adkins, the president of the association, disclosed to “GMA” that it is possible for the debt to have doubled or even tripled since then. Adkins further explained that unpaid meal debt eventually needs to be settled and may be allocated to the general fund.
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