Make school lunches free in Georgia so children — and their parents — can eat

With more than 2.5 million children in Georgia, this means more than 800,000 kids don’t have the food they need to thrive.

For kids, hunger is far more than an empty stomach; it affects how they learn, behave and experience the world around them. Children experiencing hunger can struggle to focus in school, regulate their emotions and keep up with schoolwork.

Congress let emergency authority on food expire

Credit: Emory University

Credit: Emory University

Hunger in Georgia’s kids is not inevitable. We know how to fix this, because we’ve done it before.

In our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress gave the USDA emergency authority that allowed schools to provide meals free of charge to every child and to expand summer feeding programs.

During the 2021-2022 school year, every child could eat. No kid left out. No paperwork stigma. No lunch debt.

In June 2022, Congress let that emergency authority expire, and universal free meals in schools stopped. Several states decided to fund universal school meals, but Georgia did not.

Today, 1 in 20 Georgia children have lunch debt. Among them, 1in 4 owes more than $100.

Parents are also telling us that economic pressures are making everyday life harder. Nearly 60% of parents say rising prices have changed the way they buy food, with 1 in 4 parents reporting they skip meals so their kids can eat.

Georgia should fund the basic needs of children

Food insecurity exists in every corner of Georgia, in rural communities, suburbs and cities. It affects families across race, income and geography.

But across those same divides, we found 86% of Georgia parents say that meals should be free in schools. Although universal free meals won’t solve everything, they are a concrete place to start.

Hunger in Georgia’s children is flying under the radar, perhaps because it looks different from we might think.

It is often happening in silence. It is parents skipping meals. It is kids racking up lunch debt. It’s parents struggling to afford food because of rising prices. But food insecurity is so common in our state it is likely you or someone you know is affected.

What if our state’s politics moved from what divides us and instead focused on a basic question that nearly all Georgians agree on?

“When children are hungry, will we feed them?”

Stephen W. Patrick, M.D., M.P.H., is the O. Wayne Rollins distinguished professor and chair, Department of Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, and attending neonatologist Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

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