For National School Lunch Week (Oct. 12-16) let’s remember America’s proud history of using school meals to reduce child hunger. Back in the early 1900s it was a Cincinnati school teacher, Ella Walsh, who started penny lunches for needy kids. If children could not afford the penny they would get the meals for free.

Walsh’s school meals helped save the lives of kids who were impoverished. Her program was so successful it was expanded to many more schools. It was the beginnings of school feeding in America.

Heroic efforts like this led to the creation of the National School Lunch Program in 1946, which provided free or reduced price lunches to children from low-income families. 

Since then, the program has been developed and bolstered by school breakfast and other initiatives. 

Now today we have to make sure the meals reach everyone in need. According to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) the easiest way is for schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all their students. Free meals for all students would make sure no child in need goes hungry. Costly administrative work to determine eligibility would be eliminated.

A recent FRAC poll “found that 79 percent of registered voters across the country support offering free school meals to all students, regardless of household income, in all schools.”

There are currently nine states that have free school breakfast and lunch for all kids (California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Vermont). These states provide an example for national legislation.

But Congress needs to be supportive of the free school meals for all plan so it can go nationwide to fight child hunger. Everyone can urge their elected officials in Congress to support legislation for universal free school breakfast and lunch programs. We have to ensure no child goes hungry.

“Universal free meals allows schools to achieve the lunch trays everyone wants to see: local foods from the farmers or fishermen down the street, more scratch cooking, and kids not having to worry if their parents were able to afford school lunch this week” said Caroline Trinder, the director of school nutrition for Saco, Biddeford, and Dayton Schools in Maine.

The need for school meals is especially great with many families struggling because of high food prices.  A recent survey by No Kid Hungry revealed that 70 percent of low-income parents are worried about how they are going to afford groceries. Sadly, changes by Congress to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) may result in kids losing access to school meals.

We should be increasing school meals to help families throughout America. Kids need the meals for health and so they can focus on learning.

Democrats and Republicans should be able to work together on passing legislation for universal free school meals. Former Senators George McGovern and Bob Dole set a great example of working together on developing programs to fight hunger. Former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio was also very good at supporting school meals and summer feeding for kids while working across party lines.

This National School Lunch Week we should also keep in mind that school lunches matter to other countries too. As we struggle to find a good foreign policy we should take a lesson from 80 years ago when we started our National School Lunch program. At the same time we were expanding school lunches at home we also supported feeding programs for kids in Europe and other parts of the globe. These school meals made a huge difference in our post World War II effort to build peace. A good foreign policy includes feeding hungry kids.

National School Lunch Week should inspire action to end child hunger. We have the power to make sure every kid gets the school meals they need to prevent hunger. It’s a simple plan, but highly effective. Free school meals bring children good health and a good education.

William Lambers is an author who partnered with the UN World Food Program on the book “Ending World Hunger.” His writings have been published by the Washington Post, Newsweek, History News Network and many other news outlets.