Students in the Rock Hill School District to get free lunch, breakfast this fall
Starting this fall, students in the Rock Hill School District will get free breakfast and lunch.
The Rock Hill School board approved the new pilot program during its meeting Tuesday night.
The Community Eligibility Provision program will provide free breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost and with no free and reduced student meal applications required.
“This is a huge win for our children and families,” said Lindsay Machak, the Executive Director of Communications and Marketing for Rock Hill Schools. “When a child is hungry they’re not able to completely focus on learning, so Rock Hill Schools made it a priority to work to remove this barrier.”
The program is a provision in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act that was passed in 2010 by President Obama. The act was aimed at reforming school meals and making them more nutritious for students.
Only 19 of the 22 schools in the Rock Hill School District are eligible for the program. Getting the remaining three onboard is expected to cost about $660,000, which the district is requesting to allocate from its budget.
An example of how much this program would save a family:
Last school year, an elementary school student who did not qualify for free or reduced meals paid $3.30 a day for both breakfast and lunch, while a middle or high school student paid $3.55.
A family of four with a kid in elementary school and a kid in middle school would save $34.25 a week.
