California has the fifth-largest economy in the world, with the highest rate of child poverty in the United States. The largest percentage of hungry California children lives right here in Santa Barbara County — more than 28,000 children are at risk of not having enough to eat. This number has been rising steadily for almost a decade, and organizations from federal food services to public school cafeterias are trying to help.
McKinley Elementary School, for example, has a vibrant and vital program. Every midday, the cafeteria bustles as kids line up to receive their school lunch. More than 90 percent of these children are from families living on or below the poverty line, and this cafeteria often provides the only free and wholesome meals they might receive all day. The kids are excited with their choices today — an incredible array of options including pozole, chicken and veggie enchiladas, and a colorful, inviting salad bar. It even has veggies covered with Tajín, a popular Mexican seasoning made of ground chili pepper, salt, and dehydrated lime.
McKinley Elementary is part of the Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD), which has one of the largest ongoing projects combating child hunger in the county. Within the district, approximately 7,400 of its 14,500 students qualify for the National School Lunch Program, which provides children of low-income families with meals at school each day. To have qualified for reduced-cost meals for the 2017-18 school year, the federal government required that a family of four make no more than $45,510 a year; for free meals, the income ceiling was $31,980. However, in Santa Barbara, as in other wealthy sections of the country, housing costs are so high that poor families are forced to live in extremely overcrowded and often unreliable housing. More than 2,000 children in the Santa Barbara school district live in tight quarters or must move from location to location as rents rise. These conditions are generally classified as homeless, and in our ever-tightening rental market, this phenomenon is not uncommon.