Webutuck District’s free and reduced lunch program benefits students and families

AMENIA — During Webutuck’s Board of Education meeting on Monday, Oct. 7, board members detailed the fiscal challenges of feeding students.

“The cafeteria fund and our school lunch program has really always ran into deficit,” Webutuck School Business Administrator Robert Farrier said. “Schools that generally are in the positive have a much more robust a la carte, where students are able to buy more things above their normal lunch. We don’t have that here.”

Webutuck follows the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, giving the district serving sizes, calorie count and nutritional guidelines to follow. The law also mandates that the student must select a fruit or vegetable to go with their meal, or the student must pay for each item on their tray. Milk is the drink provided in the nutritional guidelines, and can not be replaced with another drink the student prefers. However, they may purchase another drink if desired.

“Once we went to the free and reduced, where all students get free lunch and breakfast, it has helped our lunch program,” Farrier said. “We generally send $150,000 from the general fund to the cafeteria fund. We did that, and we probably didn’t need to send as much as we did, but we are starting to get to a point where we’re going to break even. Our goal is to keep building up the lunch program.”

Breakfast and lunch are served every day for free when students provide their assigned ID numbers and have filled out an economic survey for the school year. Snacks and a la carte items from the cafeteria are not included in the lunch program, and the student must have money in their account or with them to purchase those kinds of food.

“I know no one likes to have rising prices, but, you know, our food costs have gone up through the roof,” Farrier said. “Orange juice has tripled in price from the start of school. We don’t increase prices throughout the year, we just go with the flow.”

According to Feeding America, in 2018 the child food insecure population in Dutchess County was 8,050, which is about 14.1%. Nearly one in six children in the United States faced food insecurity in 2021, and currently 58% of New York state’s population is below the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) threshold.

“Our ultimate goal is to feed as many students,” said Farrier. “We don’t want them to go home hungry.”