The families in question don’t have the time or money to serve breakfast and pack lunches, both parents work multiple jobs to make ends not quite meet, type of situation. School meals are a convenience for middle/upper class families and a life preserver for low income/food insecure families. For a lot of those kids it’s the only meals they get that day.

At my school growing up we had the pre paid lunch cards in a file at the start of the lunch line, the lunch card lady would find and punch your card when you went through. The “free lunch” cards were a different color than the “pre paid lunch” cards, which some of the parents worried was causing embarrassment for the children on food assistance. So the PTA voted to make them all the same color, with no way for kids to see if other kids qualified for free lunches.

That’s the difference between conservative and progressive states. As of last year in California all schools are required to offer breakfast and lunch to all children regardless of ability to pay. In my area (of California) there are stations set up daily through out the summer break to distribute sack lunches for kids who don’t eat when they don’t go to school.

Conservative states literally refuse free money from the federal government for these programs (the states do have to put up some money for it too) because they don’t think that anyone should get “something for nothing” including hungry children. To the point that these kids get their food thrown in the trash after they’ve been served, by grown up bullies who work for the school. Because that’s what Jesus would do.