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Earliest Program in the USA
The Children's Aid Society of New York served food daily to kids who went to vocational school. This was the first time free food was given to kids at school in America. -
Chicago
The Chicago Board of Education gives $1200 to serve lunches to children living in deep poverty. to start, they gave it to only 6 schools, but in 1916, it was up to 59 schools. -
Malnutrition
USDA's Agricultural Research Service conducted a food consumption survey in which it was found that over 1/3 of the households with incomes of $10,000 or more did not have diets that met all recommended levels of all the nutrients to provide a good diet. The National School Lunch Program saw this problem, and began to make attempts to remedy this national problem. -
Child Nutrition Act
The Child Nutrition Act was signed in order to ensure school lunch was providing for the health needs of children receiving food. One of this act’s goals was to “encourage the domestic consumption of agricultural and other foods”. -
School Lunch Program Expansion
There was continuous growth in the School Lunch Program from its first permanent stance until 1968. It grew from 4.5 million children participating to 18.9 million. Federal support also grew from about $60 million to over $160 million. -
Reimbursement
In 2014, the federal government spent about $20 billion to reimburse schools, child care centers, and after-school programs for children’s meals. -
Feeding 30 Million!
The National School Lunch Program fed about 30 million children each school day in 2014 and spent $12.7 billion. -
Growth
In the United States, 98,000 schools participated in the National School Lunch Program.