California feeds kids at school. What happens on the weekend?

Guest Commentary

By Tyler McCarthy, Outreach Associate, White Pony Express

On Friday afternoon, for a student who eats breakfast and lunch at school, the dismissal bell does more than end the school day. It starts a 68-hour clock. The last dependable school meal of the week has just been served. The next one won’t arrive until Monday morning.

We hear from our school partners what those hours can mean. As one parent liaison put it: “My thinking was that if I can give them a meal for Saturday, then they only have to get through Sunday. That lessens the need.”

California has done something remarkable. In 2022–23, it became the first state in the nation to guarantee every public school student access to free breakfast and lunch, regardless of family income. Nearly 3.5 billion school meals have been served since the program began.

It works. And at a time when changes to federal nutrition programs are putting additional pressure on some California families, it’s an achievement we must protect.

But hunger doesn’t follow a school calendar.

California’s universal meals program feeds children during the school day. Children still need to eat Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, holidays and school breaks. California has also embraced summer grocery benefits for eligible families, another important piece of the solution. But summer assistance does not solve the gap that arrives every week between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.

For a family already choosing between rent, utilities, transportation, and groceries, those aren’t simply gaps in a schedule. They can be the days the refrigerator runs empty. That’s where White Pony Express makes an enormous difference.

Every day, White Pony Express drivers collect surplus food from grocers, farms, wholesalers, and restaurants – high-quality food that is perfectly good but has nowhere to go. We sort it for quality the same day and deliver it, free of charge, to neighbors throughout Contra Costa County. Of the 135,000 people White Pony Express serves each year, nearly one-third – about 40,300 – are children.

Our School Pantry Program brings fresh groceries directly into 23 school communities where 80 percent or more of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Families shop at no cost, with no forms and no questions asked.

One pantry coordinator remembers a young mother raising three children alone after losing her husband. She came to the pantry for groceries, including peanut butter and chicken.

“She doesn’t have money to buy much,” the coordinator told us, “but she told me it’s a blessing to have White Pony Express helping us.”

Since the School Pantry Program began in 2015, White Pony Express has delivered more than three million pounds of food to school communities – the equivalent of roughly 2.5 million meals.

The model works because it connects two resources that already exist: good food that would otherwise go unused and trusted neighborhood schools where families already gather.

It also demonstrates something larger. Public programs and community organizations do not have to compete with one another. They can complete one another.

California has shown what is possible when we make a public commitment to feed children at school and then build a system capable of doing it at an extraordinary scale. Now we need to look just as honestly at the hours the school cafeteria cannot cover.

More than two million California children still lack reliable access to healthy food. For them, the problem doesn’t begin Monday morning. It begins Friday afternoon, when the bell rings. And that is a gap communities like ours can – and must – close.

To volunteer, donate food, or support the School Pantry Program, visit whiteponyexpress.org.