Senate bill would extend free, healthy meals for children in summer months

Posted Sunday, Apr. 3, 2022, 3:09 pm

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U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine joined a bipartisan group of their colleagues in introducing the Aid Little ones Not Purple Tape Act, which would grant the USDA further versatility so that colleges and summer months meal websites can remain open up and boost entry to cost-free, healthy meals for small children.

The added flexibility would signify less crimson tape and far more solutions for family members, such as by allowing households to decide on up a week’s value of meals or possessing foods sent to their property on the faculty bus.

These flexibilities have been crucial to feeding learners during the COVID-19 pandemic. With 90 p.c of educational institutions still struggling with lots of challenges as they return to usual functions, these flexibilities would give universities substantially-necessary assist to keep children fed.

“Every baby, regardless of where they dwell, warrants healthy foods,” Warner and Kaine mentioned. “Ensuring that school districts have the versatility and federal assets they need to hold feeding their students is crucial to our combat to stop childhood starvation in The us. This laws will assist us do that.”

The bipartisan Guidance Children Not Crimson Tape Act would:

• Increase USDA’s authority to difficulty waivers from June 30, 2022 to September 30, 2023, which would increase USDA school meal flexibilities. This is just a continuation of the authority USDA has experienced and exercised throughout the pandemic. This would protect this summertime, as effectively as the full 2022-2023 university calendar year, and summertime of 2023, and develop a changeover prepare to aid colleges change again to standard university food operations commencing Oct 1, 2023.
• Direct states to submit a transition plan to USDA so that educational facilities will be geared up and supported when transitioning back to regular National School Lunch System functions just after the amplified flexibilities stop.
• Direct the Secretary to give complex guidance to states on drafting transition designs and to University Foods Authorities on meeting meal specifications for the duration of the waiver period.