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Free meals available to Washington students

2 min read
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When they return for the 2015-16 school year Wednesday, all 1,500 students in Washington School District will have the necessary nourishment to carry them through a rigorous day of learning.

As a part of the Community Eligibility Provision from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the district will offer free breakfast and lunch to every student.

“This (program) makes sure all students eat breakfast and lunch and erases all barriers for doing so,” said Dr. Roberta DiLorenzo, district superintendent.

The provision allows schools with high poverty rates to provide free meals, and eliminates the burden of collecting paperwork to determine eligibility.

During the last school year, about 70 percent of Washington students were eligible for the federal free or reduced-cost lunch, which requires all households to fill out an application to determine income eligibility.

Washington Park Elementary students participated in the Community Eligibility Provision for the first time last year, improving their nutrition through “tasty, good offerings,” DiLorenzo said.

She is enthusiastic about the program being offered to all students and asked parents to encourage their children to take advantage of the plan and eat both breakfast and lunch.

“We want to make sure all kids have all the benefits they need to be good learners,” she said. “They’ll be healthy and ready to learn.”

The Community Eligibility program was available in several states at the start of the 2011-12 school year and broadened to schools in all states in the 2014-15 school year.

Two nutritious meals are available daily at no charge if more than 40 percent of the district’s students are “identified students,” meaning they have been either recognized as low income by another program or are considered at risk of hunger.

Washington qualifies for the program because 56 percent of the population are “identified students.”

As of the 2014-15 school year, the program was available to more than 6.4 million children in about 14,000 schools.

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