As the adage goes, it takes a village to raise a child, and when a basic necessity like access to and education about nutritious meals is at risk due to federal government rollbacks, community leaders and organizations are showing up and protecting the food that students across the nation and its capital need to live.
From nonprofits, advocacy organizations and local farms, people are stepping in to know children and their school meals have an unwavering support system behind them.
After President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, funding for major initiatives— including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed)— was immediately threatened. Although this monumental program encourages nutrition education and obesity prevention by promoting healthy food choices and physical activity, its federal funding halted at the end of September 2025, and any remaining funds are expected to be spent by the end of September 2026.
With cuts to SNAP, the fight for universal school meals becomes more challenging.
“Congress really needs to strengthen and protect SNAP at this moment in time,” Ashanti Lewis, director of federal government relations at FoodCorps, told The Informer. “It affects direct certification where children [can] go in and have access to their meals without the burden of paperwork, and so it’s a much easier way for kids to get their meals.”
Universal school meal initiatives gained national momentum in 2021, when California and Maine implemented the Healthy School Meals for All policy, which offers school breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost for families. Since then, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Vermont have also enacted similar, permanent programs.
In Washington, more than 75% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, and while the city has made strides toward expanding access to nutritious foods in schools, it still has work to do to ensure all students can receive free school meals regardless of income eligibility rules. To move forward with securing free school meals, the Universal School Meals Amendment Act was introduced on Jan. 31, 2025, but has been under review since February 2025.
“A great thing about universal access is that it removes the stigma associated with school meals for students,” said Nathan Garcia, senior advocacy communications manager at Food Corps. “When every student eats, the cafeteria becomes a place of community rather than a place where a child’s household income is visible.”
While universal access is crucial, guaranteeing that the food served in early childhood, primary and secondary educational institutions is nutritious is just as imperative.
Lewis acknowledges the progress the nation as a whole has made in school meal access, but urges Congress to continue building on that momentum by expanding and protecting the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which is a universal meal program that provides meals at no cost to eligible schools in low-income areas. She also believes the federal government should recognize school nutrition as an essential educational infrastructure and strengthen opportunities for schools to purchase food from local and regional producers.
“Children’s bodies and brains are still developing every day… so consistent access to nutrient-dense food supports healthy growth, energy, concentration and the ability to regulate emotions and remain engaged in the classroom,” Lewis explained. “When children do not know when or where they’re going to get their next meal, that uncertainty creates stress in addition to hunger.”
How Local Food Leaders Are Nourishing D.C. Students
In Washington, organizations like D.C. Central Kitchen (DCCK) and numerous local farmers are doing the necessary work in prioritizing locally sourced foods to put scratch meals on children’s breakfast and lunch trays. They simultaneously serve as educational resources, connecting students and their families to the land and whole-food cooking.
DCCK has served Washingtonians for 37 years and is considered to be the nation’s first community kitchen. For the past 15 years, the nonprofit has acted as a food service provider for 30 schools in the city through its Healthy School Food program, using the act of serving students fresh meals as an educational source through cooking demonstrations, taste tests and nutritional lessons.
“When we talk about healthy food, the idea is that you have to do something that’s esoteric, or maybe unfamiliar to kids in order to make it healthy,… [but] that’s not true,” DCCK Chief Development Officer Alexander Moore told The Informer. “The magic we try to have is that we try to make foods that are recognizable to kids but use healthy techniques.”
Using whole-grain ingredients and whole raw fruits and vegetables processed in-house by graduates of its Culinary Job Training program, DCCK produces school meal menus that are compelling to students. Lunch items that have garnered a positive response from kids in schools that partner with the nonprofit include: hot honey chicken, a fish sandwich made with catfish caught from the Chesapeake Bay, tacos, nachos, orange chicken and pizza made with flatbread dough from a local vendor.
DCCK prioritizes a leadership cycle through its Culinary Training program, which equips people who have faced barriers with the tools necessary to pursue culinary careers. Through this program, the organization has created nearly 100 full-time jobs for graduates– something that is extremely fulfilling for Moore.
“Being able to provide living-wage employment that says, ‘You matter, your community matters, and you can be a part of making that community a better place while providing for yourself and your family ’–that’s really powerful,” Moore told The Informer.
Graduates from the training program end up becoming nutrition advocates in school cafeterias, committed to teaching students about how the food on their plate is prepared, and are involved in feedback loops that allow them to continue curating menus that excite schools.
Another way food education is championed across the city is through local farmers’ commitments to reclaiming, protecting, and understanding the land, and passing along that knowledge to the next generation of growers. For Eugene Yarbro, the founder of Harvest 2 Health— a farm and community committed to providing Washingtonians with the freshest produce available— that dedication started with cooking.
While working as a chef at vegan restaurant Delights of the Garden, Yarbro realized that what many referred to as “alternative foods” were the foods that humanity was meant to eat. Witnessing so many people purchase and eat that food impressed the now-farmer and triggered a transformation in his life, allowing him to prioritize his health and work as an educator teaching students that eating nutritious foods would help them be better students.
“[Black people] have been separated from the land by a commercial society, but it’s important to know when you grab food off the shelf where it comes from,” Yarbro told The Informer.
An educator at Bunker Hill Elementary School and Roosevelt High School, Yarbro encourages students to “read about the seed” and learn about the importance of soil. At Harvest 2 Health farms in Brandywine, Maryland and on the Eastern Shore, he and his network host events to expand knowledge about seeds and growing for people of all ages.
“People get a chance to come out and connect with the land again,” Yabro told The Informer. “I always make an analogy to our humanity, that we started as a seed in our mother’s womb, and we’ve grown, we’ve developed, and with nurturing that body, with nurturing that food, we can either be healthy or unhealthy, and it’s the same process for soil and seeds.”
Whether in the District, Maryland, or across the nation, the commitment to providing children with nutrient-dense foods in the institutions they spend the majority of the year in runs deep between advocates, nutrition professionals, chefs and farmers alike.
Future generations need adequate access to healthy foods to sustain the long and healthy lives they’re supposed to live. The fight to ensure these meals are available to children nationwide is important to a web of like-minded people ready to provide for their communities.
“All of us within this industry know that local foods for schools are so important when we’re working with farmers and agriculture close to the school because children get that fresh food every day, and it’s great for local economies,” Lewis told The Informer. “It’s great for the community, and it’s such a boost for schools.”
