Whitmer on right track in proposing free student meals
The Mining Journal’s Editorial Board has long felt — and held — that among the most significant blemishes upon the United States is the number of people that find themselves beset by food insecurity.
That’s what they’re calling plain-old, garden-variety hunger these days — food insecurity. And it’s everywhere, including the Upper Peninsula.
That’s why we like that facet of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s newly proposed budget that includes money for free breakfast and lunch for all of the 1.4 million students attending public schools
Previous funding for this effort, which expired mid last year, came from the federal government in the form of COVID-19 relief.
Since then, only kids from low-income families have qualified.
Whitmer aims to close the so-called hunger gap completely by providing funds to feed all students, streamlining the process, reducing stress and costs to families and helping eliminate the stigma to students who receive free or reduced-cost meals.
If approved, it will do something for young Michigan residents that government seldom does: demonstrate compassion.
We’ve said it before in this space and will say it again: It is shameful that anyone in this great country of ours goes to bed with an empty stomach. We have enough to feed everyone PLUS send food overseas to help where it is needed.
Yet, here we are.
We support Whitmer’s proposal and hope the parties can set politics aside in Lansing and approve it forthwith.