When School Meals Are Part of the Family Food Budget

For a lot of families, the school year is the safe part of the calendar.

Summer is actually when things get harder.

No Kid Hungry ran a survey heading into this school year. I read it a few days ago, and I haven't stopped thinking about one number in it.

Nearly six in ten parents near the poverty line said that without school meals, their kids would not have enough to eat on some school days.

I don't have the full context behind a national number like that. But I can see the shape of it from here.

One of the mothers who shops with us shared that before she found The Store, she was skipping her own meals during summer break so her two school-aged kids would have enough to eat.

Summer break. Because the cafeteria was closed.

So when the buses started running again last month, a weight lifted in homes across this city. I don't want to move past that too quickly.

Not a statistic. A mother eating again.

And then May comes, and for a lot of families, the worry starts all over again.

For a family in that position, school meals are part of how the grocery budget works for nine months of the year. Breakfast at school changes what's left for dinner. Lunch changes what's left at the end of the month.

And then June comes, and that math changes overnight.

At The Store, we see what happens when families have less room in their grocery budgets. We see what gets put back on the shelf. We see parents stretch what they have, skip meals, and make sure their kids eat first.

Those moments tell us a lot about what families are carrying. And I believe that perspective matters.

Because I've stopped thinking of a school food budget as simply an education decision.

It's a family food budget, too.

It's a decision about what gets eaten for dinner in February — and whether a mother eats dinner at all in July.