In the 2021-22 state budget, California committed to offering every student free breakfast and free lunch in the 2022-23 school year.

Offering free meals to all students reduces harmful stigma and helps account for true levels of poverty among California kids -- levels of poverty that are driven by our state's unrelentingly high cost of living.

Offering free meals to all students acknowledges that nutritious food is an educational tool. School meals are a critical resource that can help address inequities in health, well being, and opportunity.

Much work remains to make the transformative policy vision of free meals for all a sustainable, on-the-ground reality. But the decisions made by the Governor and the California Legislature in 2021 set us on an incredibly promising path toward nourishing every kid, every day.

Please take a moment to thank the budget leaders who helped secure this win.