Oregon House Bill 5014, a bill that may allow more schools in Eugene’s school districts to offer free meals to its students, was signed into law by Oregon governor Tina Kotek on July 27.
HB 5014 will allocate funds to the Department of Education so that more schools in the state can participate in giving students two free meals a day.
Currently, 12 schools in Eugene are not eligible to participate in Community Eligibility Provision (CEP)
The Community Eligibility Provision is a child nutrition program which is part of the U.S Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service.
Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, FOOD for Lane County and the Oregon Food Bank are advocates for universal access to free meals for K-12 students in Oregon. Oregon Food Bank and Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon influence policy regarding hunger in Oregon, and FOOD for Lane County assists schools with food pantries and also provides meals to students when school isn’t in session.
Food insecurity in Lane County
Many schools in Oregon use CEP, including 19 schools in the Eugene school district. Other schools throughout Oregon remain only nearly eligible for this service option –– most of them in rural areas.
According to David Wieland, a policy advocate for Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, this federal rule change combined with secure funding would make all of the schools within both school districts in Eugene eligible to participate in CEP.
CEP is a meal service option for schools and school districts in low-income areas. Schools that are eligible for CEP are reimbursed for their free meals using a formula that evaluates students who are eligible for other programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
Oregon Food Bank and Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon estimate that more than 114,000 children in Oregon live in households that struggle to afford food. According to Food for Lane County, 24% of children in Lane County live in food-insecure households.
The Oregon Food Bank estimates that one in five Oregonians face food insecurity in communities throughout the state.
Wieland said that the bill will help as many as 200 additional schools in Oregon be able to offer free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 students. These changes would begin to take place during the 2024-2025 school year.
Food insecurity during the pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools in Oregon had federal waivers which ensured that all K-12 students could be served two meals a day without charge. According to the Oregon Department of Education web page, school districts returned to regular meal programs on July 1, 2022.
Matt Newell-Ching, public policy manager at Oregon Food Bank, said that these federal waivers during the pandemic made people realize that food insecurity was an issue that Oregon may have the means to solve.
“There’s a lot of problems that are really hard to solve,” Newell-Ching said. “But this isn’t one of them. We have the means to solve this, we just need the will to do it.”
Newell-Ching said that school lunch can often feel like an “income test” for children who may be on reduced price or free lunch, and free meals for all students would eliminate the stigma that those students feel.
Wieland said Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon and Oregon Food Bank have been working closely together to address the root causes of hunger. Wieland said that not having access to food can decrease a child’s ability to learn and socialize in school.
“We know and believe that kids shouldn’t have to learn on an empty stomach,” Wieland said.
What organizations are doing to help
Food for Lane County works to fill the nutrition gap for Eugene and the surrounding area during the summer when school is not in session. Tom Mulhern, executive director of Food for Lane County, said that the organization serves an average of 1,000 meals a day in the summer, throughout 32 meal sites. These sites are located throughout Creswell, Veneta, Springfield, Thurston, Eugene, Junction City and Alvadore. They also had five rural food boxes or pantries operating during the summer of 2022. During the school year, they support school-based food pantries that get groceries home to low-income families through the students.
“Having to pay for school lunch is a real barrier for low-income families,” Mulhern said. “Incurring debt to be able to [pay for lunch] is very onerous for families. That just places another stress and burden on families that are already stressed and burdened.”
Newell-Ching said that while this bill is a step in the right direction for Oregon, it doesn’t quite move to the state having universal free meals.
“We’re still part of a coalition that’s trying to get fully universal, but this is a really good step,” Newell-Ching said. “We were frustrated that Oregon is lagging behind other states, but I mean, we’re talking 200 additional schools, and for the kids who go to those schools, that is a really positive thing. And it helps build our case that this is the right direction to go.”
Newell-Ching said that for schools who returned to the traditional paid school lunch model after the pandemic, instances of school lunch debt went up for families because free meals were no longer available for their children.
“We really envision a future where the notion of paying for school meals isn’t a thing,” Newell-Ching said. “We would love to see the phrase ‘school lunch debt’ thrown into the dustbin of history.”
He said that there is fear of shame and scrutiny within low-income and immigrant households that stops them from filling out forms to apply for reduced or free school lunch.
“[Schools] are nickel-and-diming working parents,” Newell-Ching said. “We want to do away with these barriers that stop kids from eating and doing well in school.”
He said that when this coalition of organizations like Oregon Food Bank and Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon began working together in 2019, no states had done universally free meals yet. He said that it feels like there is a growing consensus that understands the benefits of free school meals.
Newell-Ching said that it has been encouraging to see more organizations step up after the waivers during the pandemic proved that free school lunch was possible for students in Oregon.
Newell-Ching said that the problem does not end with K-12 education. He said that college students are often excluded from helpful programs like SNAP which causes barriers for people seeking higher education. According to a survey from Food for Lane County in 2021, 91% of the college students who were surveyed said they face food insecurity.
According to SNAP eligibility rules, students enrolled in college at least half time are not eligible unless they meet certain exemptions.
“You don’t get to pick and choose what income your parents are,” Newell-Ching said. “This is really all about believing in equity.”
Editor’s note: The shortening of ‘Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon’ to ‘Hunger-Free Oregon’ has been changed to reflect the whole name of the organization.
