Vicksburg Warren School District Child Nutrition Director Gail Kavanaugh, left, speaks about the applications for school meal benefits as Brenda Milner, coordinator for free and reduced lunches, enters data into the computer Monday at the Support Services building of the Vicksburg Warren School District.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[7/1/03]The head of Vicksburg Warren School District’s nutrition department is 100 percent behind an idea to feed for free those children who are now paying reduced prices for breakfast and lunch.

“We saw this as an issue to help support the working families, families that are having a hard time making ends meet and struggling,” said Gail Kavanaugh, 18-year food service director here.

In public schools, breakfast and lunches are served at full, reduced and free rates according to each student’s family size and household income.

As chairman of the public policy and legislation chairman for the Mississippi School Food Service Association, Kavanaugh testified before Congress in March in support of making the reduced-price lunch free.

Full-priced lunches for elementary students are $1.25 and $1.50 for high school students; for breakfast, the price is 60 cents for all grades. The reduced cost is 40 cents for lunch and 25 cents for breakfast.

Though not much for one student, Kavanaugh pointed out that many of the students are from single-parent homes with several children.

Total income in reduced-price fees here are $43,000, and, in essence, the American School Food Service Association is asking for that amount be added to the annual U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidy.

“It would leave this money with the families and the government would pay the additional money,” Kavanaugh said. “We understand this is not a small thing, but we do feel like it is something we need for our working families.”

The child nutrition department budget is about $2.8 million annually, with about $456,000 from students who pay for lunches. All meals are subsidized to some degree.

About 83,000 of the 1.1 million lunches the school district served last year were sold at a reduced-price, and nearly 420,000 were free. The school district served nearly 525,000 breakfasts last year, and nearly 36,000 were served to children paying the reduced price while almost 736,000 were free.

Congress reauthorizes child nutrition programs every four years and the elimination of reduced-priced lunches is under consideration this year. The bill is expected to go before Congress this fall.