Education and nutrition go hand in hand. If a child is hungry or malnourished, it’s a good bet they can’t concentrate on their studies. That premise underpins the federal school-lunch and school-breakfast programs, which provide free- or reduced-price meals to millions of at-risk students each year.
So, class breaks are a challenge for families that depend upon those programs, as Take Note explored earlier this summer. It is back-to-school time now, but as the chart below indicates, Missouri and Kansas don’t fare so well in helping fill that meal gap in the summer.
Other federal efforts, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also help fill in the gap for kids, as the map below indicates for Kansas City-area school districts.
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