Opinion: Nutrition waivers are needed to keep feeding hungry students in South Bay this fall [Opinion]
Last year in California, the Healthy School Meals for All legislation was passed. This means the state will cover the cost of two nutritious meals each day for all children beginning in the 2022-23 school year. Just as every child receives a textbook, each will receive a meal as well with hopes to reduce hunger and remove stigma for students in accessing meals. It is my dream that this becomes a national initiative.
Securing food during the pandemic was a main objective for our team and continues to be a focus as we move into the 2022-23 school year. When the supply chains are disrupted, we experience spikes in pricing and product availability may be affected. In addition to school districts, our industry partners were also impacted with labor and supply shortages from which they have yet to fully recover. We saw unprecedented fluctuations in product availability.
In the Sweetwater Union High School District, we will continue to look for creative ways to ensure we have enough food as pressure mounts on the food system. This school year, we purchased truckloads of food to ensure we had supplies for our meal program and we contracted with local cold storage facilities to hold product. Our proactive planning placed our district in a position to receive and hold volumes of food and to provide consistent service to our students.
Fiscal challenges are always present in nutrition services programs, and as program directors and personnel, the campaign to feed our students is personal. We are optimistic as we move forward and navigate to recovery from the global pandemic, that all entities will come together to feed our students and help them thrive, as our future depends on it.