Gov. Evers Announces “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids” Initiative to End School Meal Debt, Provide Healthy Breakfast and Lunch to Wisconsin Students
MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers tonight, during his 2025 State of the State address, announced his plan to address student hunger through the “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids” initiative in his 2025-27 Executive Budget proposal.
The governor, during his address, declared 2025 the Year of the Kid in Wisconsin, urging bipartisan focus on ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of Wisconsin’s kids statewide. The governor’s “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids” initiative aims to help improve kids’ outcomes and ensure kids are healthy and come to class coursework ready by fully funding school breakfasts and lunches for students across the state. The governor’s plan is designed to make sure no kid goes hungry at school by providing healthy meals with no stigma and at no cost to kids and families.
Relevant excerpts from Gov. Evers’ 2025 State of the State address are available below:
“…I will keep saying this until the folks in this building finally hear me—if we want to improve our kids’ outcomes, then we have to shorten the odds. If we want our educators and schools to be able to do their very best work in the hours our kids are with them, we have to set them up for success. And we have to start by making sure our kids can bring their full and best selves to our classrooms.
“Kids in class should be focused on learning, not wondering when or whether they’ll eat next. Our kids should never go hungry, period, but especially not at school. In 2025 the Year of the Kid, the budget I will introduce next month will again include my ‘Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids’ initiative. Let’s end school meal debt and make sure every kid has a healthy breakfast and lunch at school with no stigma and at no cost. …”
GOV. EVERS’ “HEALTHY MEALS, HEALTHY KIDS” INITIATIVE
Many Wisconsin kids face daily anxiety about where their next meal will come from, with as many as one in six children facing hunger in Wisconsin. Food insecurity and poor nutrition often make school difficult for kids and have been shown to have a negative effect on concentration, student outcomes and achievement, and increased behavioral challenges.
According to the Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health’s 2024 Annual Report, food insecurity has been linked to impacting children’s mental health, and in 2023 alone, the Wisconsin Youth Risk Behavior Survey found 30 percent of students who were food insecure seriously considered suicide. Additionally, studies have shown that kids who face food insecurity have increased rates of stress, depression, and other behavioral challenges due to increased anxiety about their parent’s financial well-being, access to food, and embarrassment surrounding their food insecurity. Studies have also shown that in households with children who attend schools that offer free school meals, household spending on groceries fell as much as $39 a month, roughly over $460 a year.
Gov. Evers’ plan helps address food insecurity and hunger affecting our kids’ learning and outcomes in classrooms every day while also working to lower costs for parents and families. The governor’s proposal aims to make sure every kid has access to a healthy breakfast and lunch every day at school with no stigma and at no cost to families.
The governor’s proposed $154.8 million “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids” 2025-27 Executive Budget investment includes:
- Over $147.7 million for supplemental nutrition aid payments to provide free meals to all Wisconsin students attending a school participating in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program and prohibits schools from charging students for meals;
- The state will reimburse schools for the difference in federal per meal reimbursements for free meal eligible students compared to reduced price eligible students and full price students.
- More than $6.1 million to fund school breakfasts by fully funding the statutory payment of $0.15 per breakfast served to kids at school;
- These funds will expand the number of schools that are eligible for payments to include independent charter schools, residential schools, and residential care centers that participate in the federal School Breakfast Program.
- $458,900 to fully fund the projected eligible costs of the school day milk program;
- $500,000 to create a new annual appropriation to support the Farm to School initiatives that improve student health and eating behaviors and incentivize schools to support Wisconsin farmers, food producers, and local economies; and
- $250,000 in FY27 for grants to help school districts and independent charter schools replace water fountains with water bottle filling stations with filtration systems to reduce contaminants in water, including lead and chlorine.
The governor’s “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids” proposal also includes prohibiting schools from preventing a student from participating in a graduation ceremony because the student has unpaid fees, such as school lunch debt, helping to reduce potential incidents of school meal debt shaming.
Gov. Evers first proposed his Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids funding in the 2021-2023 budget and proposed funding again in the 2023-2025 budget. Unfortunately, funding for the initiative was removed from the final budget both times by the Joint Committee on Finance. Gov. Evers will continue to be a champion for making sure kids are fed at school so they can perform their best while in the classroom.
The governor’s full 2025-27 executive budget proposal will be announced following his 2025-27 Biennial Budget Message to the Legislature on Tues., Feb. 18, 2025, at 7 p.m. CT.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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