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Many Kansas City kids could lose free school meals

Free school lunch is a life-changing resource for kids in Kansas City. But for many families, potential federal budget cuts threaten to take the vital service away.

It’s a feat for Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools to offer free lunch to more than 20,000 students every day. But school nutrition teams across the metro worry that job could get harder as the Trump administration floats budget cuts that could gut their ability to offer free meals, even as they face rising prices for already-costly food and equipment. KCUR’s Jodi Fortino reports on how local cafeterias are coping.

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Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Olivia Hewitt and KCUR Studios, and edited by Gabe Rosenberg, Madeline Fox, and Emily Younker.

You can support Kansas City Today by becoming a KCUR member: kcur.org/donate.

As a newscaster and a host of a daily news podcast, I want to deliver the most important and interesting news of the day in an engaging and easily understandable way. No matter where you live in the metro or what you’re interested in, I want you to learn something from each newscast or podcast – and maybe even give you something to talk about at the dinner table.
Olivia is the 2024-2025 KCUR Studios intern. Email her at ohewitt@kcur.org
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