State gets more funding for school lunches

Funding will go toward providing healthy meals at Hawaiʻi schools, child care, after-school and summer programs where more than 100,000 children will benefit.

The rate increase is the culmination of several years of work by local anti-hunger organizations and child advocacy groups including Hawaiʻi Appleseed, Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network, Ulupono Initiative and the Hawaiʻi Afterschool Alliance.

The groups worked together to publish the Feed Our Keiki report in May 2022, which showed the federal reimbursement rates didn’t meet the current cost of providing school meals in Hawaiʻi.

“We have been trying to get this increase for over a decade,” Daniela Spoto, director of anti-hunger initiatives at Hawaiʻi Appleseed, said in a press release. “Hawaiʻi’s reimbursement rate was far too low to be able to operate these programs effectively, and it has been negatively affecting our ability to serve quality meals to children. We are incredibly excited for what this means for improving access to and quality of Hawaiʻi’s school meals.”