FARGO — A new community coalition is on a mission to guarantee every North Dakota child has access to healthy meals at school, regardless of family income.

The Together for School Meals coalition launched this week with more than 30

local organizations

backing the cause.

Made up of professionals in fields ranging from food security organizations and family advocacy groups to teachers and administrators, the coalition seeks additional support ahead of the upcoming legislative session, which convenes Tuesday, Jan. 7.

The coalition will recommend to North Dakota legislators that they provide $140 million in state funding over the next two years to reimburse school districts for the cost of providing free meals to all students.

Formed by Prairie Action ND, the coalition aims to have breakfast and lunch included in the School Meals for All program.

Melissa Sobolik, CEO of the Great Plains Food Bank, said more than 156,000 North Dakotans relied on the food bank in 2023. They included more than one in every three children, making a permanent solution to food insecurity urgent.

“It’s the highest ever for those numbers in our 41-year history,” she said.

Robin Nelson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club and Fargo school board member who is a spokesperson on legislative issues, said there are many benefits to every child getting healthy meals at school.

School attendance and academic success typically increase when children receive proper nutrition, she said, and anger issues decline when they’re not hungry and undernourished.

Nelson said it’s important to include all children in meal programs, not just those whose families are in lower income brackets.

“Some families hide that they are having issues with their bills. We just want to make sure that no child is left out, and provide every student with the optimal tools to help them succeed,” she said.

Coalition member Tony Burke, government relations director for the American Heart Association, said the U.S. is looking at a cost of $1.8 trillion for health care around chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, by 2050.

He said much of that is fueled by the increasing prevalence of obesity — a trajectory that could change if all children receive proper nutrition.

“We know everything we go after is research and evidence based. We know that investing now will save us in the long run,” Burke said.

During the last legislative session, a bill to provide free lunches at a cost of $6 million over two years for children in families at 200% of the federal poverty level,

fell one vote short of approval in the state Senate after passing in the House.

Lawmakers did end up allocating $6 million to school meals for qualifying families, but the funding was temporary.

A companion piece of legislation known as the anti-lunch shaming bill did receive approval,

ensuring that children who had unpaid school lunch bills weren’t shamed by being fed an alternate, cheaper lunch.

However, an unintended consequence of that bill, Nelson said, was that school districts were to forgive unpaid meal debt using dollars from the pot of funding that pays teachers.

“We do not want this (free meals) included in the per pupil payment. It needs to be separate,” Nelson said.

Fargo Public Schools currently has unpaid school meal debt of $72,000, which could reach $125,000 by the end of the school year, she said.

A new poll shows North Dakotans largely support state involvement in providing free school meals.

Results from the North Dakota News Cooperative poll released last month

showed 82% of respondents in favor and only 14% opposed. A total of 65% “strongly favor” providing free meals at schools.

Support was generally high among all age groups, while most opposition came from men over 55 years of age, the poll indicated.

Nelson said she and others in the coalition will track and advocate for all free school meals legislation during the session.

“That is the goal of this coalition, to make this a higher priority for our state legislators,” she said.