The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District announced that they will provide free meals to students who attend a school participating in the National School Lunch and Breakfast program. A current Free and Reduced meal application is not required to receive these free meal benefits in the 2021-2022 school year; however, it will be required to be eligible for other federal assistant programs.
Pegge Erkeneff, Director of Communications, Community, and Government Relations for the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District spoke with KSRM:
“Free school meals for this coming school year for anybody who wants to receive the meal benefit is because of federal funding that we’re receiving for this entire school year. I inquired is there any chance the funding will run out in late spring? The answer was no, we do have the federal funds for any student who wants to receive a free breakfast or lunch if their school is participating in the National Breakfast and Lunch program this year. So that’s great news. The other piece that goes along with that is, usually we have a free and reduced lunch application that needs to be filled out each year. That is still important because we receive other federal funding based on that number. So we encourage everybody who thinks that they would be able to receive that or they want to receive some of the benefits in those federal funds to still fill out that form and the form is online and people can find that easily.”
Erkeneff said:
“One thing that will change this year is last year we had Get It and Go lunches available. This year, there will not be the Get It and Go lunches available unless an entire school shifted to 100% remote and we’ve made it a commitment to really work hard to keep every school open and, if we have to have any type of a closure, it might only be with a particular pot of students or a classroom. That is a difference this year. Free lunches and breakfasts for all students and then the Get It and Go meals are only available if the entire school was to shift to 100% remote for some reason.”
Due to national supply chain shortages, KPBSD student nutrition is unable to commit to a predetermined menu, however the list of carbohydrates for menu items is located on the KPBSD nutrition webpage. If anyone has a student with a health or allergy issue, call your local school kitchen to request the menu for the week.
Links
- KPBSD Student Nutrition Services webpage
- KPBSD Free and Reduced Meal application: http://mealapp.kpbsd.org
- KPBSD secure webstore to add food service funds for meals, or use the link on the KPBSD mobile app
