For more children, dinner is coming from Uncle Sam: More low-income school kids could soon have access to free nutritious dinners like the lasagna that Avery loved. A U.S. Department of Agriculture program in Vermont, 12 other states and the District of Columbia provides reimbursements for the suppers, served at after-school programs for at-risk kids in communities where at least 50 percent of households fall below the poverty level.
'What it allows us to do is provide those kids with an extra nutritious meal before they go home because some kids go home to nothing,' said Susan Eckes, director of child nutrition programs for the Food Bank of Northern Nevada in McCarran, Nev.
Around the country, about 49,000 children benefit from the after-school meals each day. The program is expected to cost a total of $8 million from 2009 to 2013, the USDA said.
