Schools Offer Students ‘Best Meal Deals’

CENTRAL OHIO—Breakfast is brain food, and lunch refuels a young body. Some Central Ohio children are forced to skip both.

And it’s not because they’re not hungry. It’s due to cost.

NBC 4’s Marcus Thorpe GOT RIGHT TO THE POINT Thursday.

Central Ohio schools said with increased job loss, they’re seeing an increase in students who need help buying breakfast and lunch.

Qualifying families can apply for free or reduced-price breakfast and lunches.

More than 1 million meals are served at a free or reduced price in Ohio schools every day. 

Almost 80 percent of Columbus City Schools students received free breakfast and lunch as of April 2007.

“In some communities, it’s kind of startling. A reality check,“ the Ohio Department of Education’s Cecelia Torok said.

Some felt that number will increase this school year.

With an already tightening budget on local, state and federal levels, the big question was whether that free-meal funding will remain.     

If your income situation has changed, now is the time to act.

If your income situation has changed since you first tried, Torok said families should talk to their children’s schools to reevaluate applications.

“They’re the best meal deals in Ohio,“ Torok said.
Federal dollars fund Ohio’s school-meal programs, but ODE officials said some of the money comes from the shrinking budgets of local districts.

For example, ODE said Columbus City Schools foots the bill for free breakfast for everyone regardless of income. Schools are reimbursed per meal served in many other cases.

The hope is those federal dollars will be able to keep up with the increased demand in each one of Ohio’s school districts.

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