Virginia bill aims to provide free breakfast for all public school students

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Advocates are working to pass a bill in the General Assembly that would provide free breakfast for all Virginia public school students, as 43% of students are not guaranteed one at their schools.

As part of National Nutrition Month and last week's National School Breakfast Week, the American Heart Association is working to allow all students the option to eat a free, nutritious breakfast to start their day.

Emily Moore, who is a part of the American Heart Association and a University of Virginia student, and advocate Vanessa Agyei, are working with the General Assembly to ensure students are fed.

"Our school nutrition departments: we like to call them a little restaurant inside the school. They really are the commonwealth's biggest restaurant system, operating as individual nonprofit entities inside of our school divisions," Moore said.

In 95 out of 131 Virginia school divisions, all children can eat meals for free as part of the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP).

Richmond Public Schools is one of the districts that provides meals division-wide. Other divisions in Virginia have certain schools that participate in the CEP.

In participating CEP divisions and schools, 57% of Virginia children receive free meals, Agyei said. She also added that schools that provide breakfast help kids become more energized for a day in the classroom.

"There's definitely a difference on the days that I didn't eat, like home or school breakfast. I can imagine for a lot of students that are in situations where there's a lot of financial strain and a lot of other issues, it's probably more difficult," Agyei said. "Having these free lunches and free meals gives students an opportunity to feel more included and also gives way for conversations to help destigmatize free meals."

"The reality is for about 22 other divisions that are participating in maybe one school or the handful of divisions that are participating in no schools, it's really difficult financially to make that work," Moore added.

To close this gap, Moore said passing the Bill SB4 in the General Assembly would guarantee breakfast for all Virginia students. However, during the session, there has been pushback.

Moore told 8News that the House of Delegates and Senate committees believe it's too expensive this year because it requests $37 million a year.

To provide schools with breakfast, the American Heart Association staff said they want to work with Gov. Abigail Spanberger, whether it's through her support in the next session or by working to include breakfast access in her next budget.

"In her policy papers, she stated that she was more than willing to work with the legislature to guarantee school meals, access to kids and expand access to free school meals to more students," Moore said. "We're really hopeful in this off-season, now the administration is getting settled, we can work more closely with them to hopefully get this into the governor's budget next year."