• Many students who need it are not eligible 
• Students who do qualify may face shaming, bullying and even debt 

However, it’s still been a helpful program to make sure students have access to a healthy meal each school day, helping students concentrate and improve academically. 

School Meals Became Universal During the Pandemic 

During the pandemic, it became obvious that families were getting hit hard with food insecurity, or lack of access to healthy food. Helpful programs like Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) were created to fight this by covering the cost of lost school meals. Another incredible change was that school lunches temporarily became “universal”, meaning that any child could get a school meal. 

Communities have shared that this works better than the old tiered system of free, reduced-price, and paid lunches. By allowing all students to access meals without needing to apply, Healthy School Meals for All is a program that supports student well-being, reduces administrative costs, eliminates lunch debt, and removes shame and stigma from the lunchroom. 

We Want This to Continue Beyond the Pandemic 

If programs are working, let’s make sure they become permanent so we can continue improving school meals and making Colorado a great place for our students. 

Jessica Wright from Nourish Colorado says, “Every child deserves access to a meal while they are required to be in school. Eliminating the need to collect meal applications will free up time for our school meal programs to better meet the needs of their student population and it also provides their parents the opportunities to direct their limited time and resources towards supporting their child in other ways.” 

Healthy School Meals for All is an investment in children’s education — just like textbooks are a given part of school, food is part of the learning process as well.

Hunger Free Colorado and many across Colorado are supporting SB22-087, a bill that will continue healthy meals for all public school students. We ask that you support this, too! 

How can you take action? 

If you want to help make this happen, join our coalition today and receive email updates on the bill and ways to support! 

Join the coalition here: HSMA Coalition Sign Up or reach out directly to your legislators here: Get Healthy School Meals for All through the Senate!