JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WJAC) — Experts say breakfast is the most important meal of the day and now, nearly two million Pennsylvania students are able to get free breakfast thanks to Governor Wolf's new Universal Free School Breakfast Program that started this week.
Vonda Ramp a State Director for the Child Nutrition Programs in the PA Dept. of Education says, “Everybody qualifies, everybody’s eating and its good for everybody”.
Ramp says she is very excited about the new program and “there are 3,423 schools that participate in the school lunch program and there are 3,170 of those schools that participate in the school breakfast program. So that 93 percent of the schools that participate in lunch are also providing the breakfast program.”
Ramp tells 6 News only Pennsylvania schools that participate in the free lunch program can participate in this free breakfast program.
Ramp adds, “They started in the pandemic, so for the last two and a half years students have had free breakfast and free lunch. So, it was a perfect opportunity this year and with the Governor's support to continue to provide the free breakfast.”
And Ramp says most schools are eligible to join this program.
“It can be public schools, including charter schools and it can be private schools so long the private school meets the non-profit criteria. It has to be a school where students actually attend so cyber charter schools are not eligible.”
The Richland School District in Cambria County participates in this program and finds it to be beneficial to its students.
Corina Long a business manager at the Richland School District tells 6 News, “So it started this weekend, so Monday was the first day that we started providing free breakfast to all our students in the district. And so far, its been a success. We've seen a large increase in the serving of our breakfast so far. So that they, you know, they can thrive in their education and they can have a successful education throughout the day.”
Ramp tells me the Universal Free Breakfast Program received an additional 25.5 million dollars in federal funding on top of state funding the schools already receive for school meals.
For more information, you can visit the Pennsylvania Department of Education's website or email RA-NSLP@pa.gov
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