The federal funds that supported universal free lunch for K-12 students during the early pandemic expired at the end of June, leaving low-income parents struggling and schools scrambling to provide nutritional meals for all at the start of the new school year.

For today’s show, guest host Douglas Haynes talks about the challenges and opportunities of school lunch programs in Madison and nationally with a roundtable of experts.

Ursula Ballard is the registered dietician for Madison Metropolitan School District Food and Nutrition.

Joshua Perkins is the Director of Food and Nutrition at Madison Metropolitan School District.

Allison Pfaff Harris is Farm to School Director at REAP Food Group.

Jennifer Gaddis is associate professor in the Department of Civil Society & Community Studies in the School of Human Ecology at UW Madison and author of The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools (University of California Press, 2019).

Cover photo: Cafeteria staff discuss lunch service in Arlington, Virginia, October 19, 2011, by Bob Nichols for USDA, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here