At last, one positive from the COVID pandemic — free meals for Wichita-area students

While COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on schools, businesses and families, there is one notable silver lining:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture extended its free meals program through the end of the year — a move that will help ensure children have access to nutritious food, even when they’re away from school cafeterias.

That means every student in Wichita, Derby, Maize, Goddard and other area school districts will get free breakfasts and lunches this semester, whether they are learning on-site or remotely.

In Wichita, elementary children attending school on-site will eat free — no questions asked, no qualifying guidelines or additional paperwork.

Families of students enrolled in MySchool Remote can pick up five days worth of breakfasts and lunches at a dozen distribution sites every Thursday from 5 to 6 p.m., while supplies last. (For more information and a list of the Wichita district sites, visit www.usd259.org/remotefood.)

In Maize, Goddard and other districts with hybrid learning models, students can get free take-home meals for remote-learning days or pick up meals at school sites.

Necessity, it turns out, really is the mother of invention. The pandemic has forced districts to get creative with how they prepare and distribute meals, and it has prompted reluctant federal leaders to get real about the level of childhood hunger in this country.

Under the USDA’s National School Lunch Program, nearly 30 million children get free or reduced-price meals at school due to low family income. And while figures aren’t available yet, it’s widely assumed that furloughs and job losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will have even more families relying on school meals to feed children.

Extending the free summer meals initiative — a program the Wichita school district has coordinated successfully for decades — is the right thing to do to help needy families through this stressful time and make sure children get the nutrition they need.

In the past, critics of the program have argued that schools should require families to prove citizenship and financial need before children can receive a free meal. They likely will again.

But there’s simply no evidence that hordes of families are scamming the system and wasting taxpayer money by grabbing free meals.

During the summer food program, Kansas sites provide meals to less than 10% of children who qualify for free or discounted school lunches. During the school year, burdensome paperwork or the stigma of free lunches dissuade countless families from participating, and their children go hungry.

Offering free school meals to every child is the easiest way to ensure they’ll be fed — and it’s a relatively small price to pay for nutritional consistency during a public health crisis.

For the past six years, the Wichita school district has opted out of the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal free-meals-for-all initiative, citing logistical concerns and questions about potential costs.

Now that the pandemic has forced their hand, perhaps federal agencies and school districts will see the benefit of simplified free meals and find a way to make it happen.