A NEW law could save parents hundreds of dollars each year but they may not have realized it.
Massachusetts public school students will receive free lunch forever, according to Governor Maura Healy.
“Nobody calls them free lunch anymore or free meals, it’s just lunch, everybody just has lunch,” said Rebecca Wood, a parent to an 11-year-old.
Wood told WBZ TV that she wasn’t always confident her child would have access to school lunch.
“It’s awful, it truly is. She’d come home and say, ‘Mom, you have to give money to the cafeteria again,’” she said about her daughter, Charlie.
“I didn’t want her to know we were struggling and she had strangers telling her that we were.”
Charlie previously didn’t qualify for reduced lunch, leaving Wood to make tough decisions.
“I would get a paycheck in but with the high cost of housing and the medical expenses, it was gone,” said Wood.
“In Massachusetts, if you were a family of four making $52,000 a year, you were not eligible for free or reduced-price meals,” said Erin McAleer, CEO and president of Project Bread, a group advocating for statewide access to food.
“There are a lot of families in Massachusetts struggling to get by on $52,000.”
As of May, 26 percent of households in Massachusetts are food insecure, according to Project Bread.
About 18,000 people contacted their elected officials about the matter, which is what led to free meals becoming a reality.
“We know that students who are sitting in a classroom hungry are not learning,” said McAleer.
“We’ve taken the burden off of kids and kids can just go to school and get free school meals.”
The program is paid for with federal and state funding.
