School Lunch Facts

- The National School Lunch Program operates in over 101,000 public and private schools and child-care centers

- The program served free or reduced-price lunches to over 30.5 million children in 2007, and school districts across the country are reporting increased participation due to the economic crisis

- More than 187 billion lunches have been served since beginning of program

- The USDA provides commodities and cash subsidies to participating schools. States choose foods from a list of USDA commodity items and make these available to local schools.

- The program’s current nutrition standards specify that each meal must have fewer than 30 percent of calories from fat and fewer than 10 percent from saturated fat. In addition, lunches over the course of a week must provide one-third of the recommended daily allowance of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium and calories.

- Under the current reimbursement rate, schools receive $2.57 for each free lunch, $2.17 for each reduced-price lunch and $0.24 for each paid lunch. Schools with high percentages of students on the free/reduced program receive an extra two cents for each meal category.

- For school breakfast, the reimbursement rate is $1.40 for free meals, $1.10 for reduced-price meals and $0.25 for paid meals.

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