Feeding the Mind: Breakfast program shows rewards, but could use more funding

It’s a Friday morning in Trista Schaeffer’s kindergarten class. Kids line up at the sink before classes even start, wash their hands and then get in line.

It’s breakfast time at Glacier Gateway Elementary. Laid out on the table are bananas, fruit cups, yogurt, granola bars and cartons of milk.

The kids are hungry, even the ones that have eaten breakfast at home.

“Even after I eat, I’m hungry,” says youngster Autumn Wyatt as she grabs a fruit cup with a smile.

That piece of toast or bowl of cereal they had at home an hour ago has long evaporated.

The kids sit at their desks and politely eat breakfast. There’s no yelling. No running around. Food has a calming effect on 5-year-olds. It’s like magic.

Glacier Gateway started the program about a month ago as an experiment, said principal Penni Anello. The school already has a program that offers “breakfast after the bell,” which offers any child in any grade the chance to eat breakfast if they’re late or just need something to get their day going. If they can afford it, their families pay, if they can’t, the school food program largely foots the bill.

But the school gym, which doubles as a lunchroom, is crowded and noisy and not the best way for a kindergartener to start the day. Eating in class has proven much better.

While it’s easy to look out over the landscape of Columbia Falls and see the rows of shiny new homes going in, there’s still plenty of families living paycheck-to-paycheck — about 60 percent of Gateway’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch under federal guidelines.

A free lunch or free breakfast is not free, however. The school district gets some funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture food program. But the lunch and breakfast programs always have cost more than what the feds pay. The district picks up the rest of the tab.

More recently, non-profits and local businesses are stepping up as well. Earlier this year, after hearing a pitch from Gov. Steve Bullock and about the Montana No Kid Hungry campaign, Glacier Bank donated about $5,400 toward Gateway’s breakfast program, said bank president Bob Nysteun.

That allowed the school to buy some necessary equipment to run the breakfast program. It also gave them about $2,000 to start the kindergarten program, Anello said.

There’s just one problem. The money for the kindergarteners ran out at the end of February.

They’re not going hungry, Anello said. They just don’t have as many choices as they used to. Now breakfast is a granola bar and a carton of milk.

The goal is to make it through the year and then find a more permanent funding source. It costs about $72 a day to feed all of the kindergarteners breakfast, Anello noted. That’s less than $1 per child.

“I would love to keep the kindergarten program going,” Anello said. “The (teachers) really saw a positive impact.”

The school is getting help in other ways as well.

The local Farm to School program provides students with fresh fruit and vegetables from local farms across the valley at no charge to the school three times a week. The Flathead Valley Snack program also provides a protein snack for kids once a week at the school.

The school also has a weekend backpack program so that kids have something to eat over the weekend. More than 120 students and their families take advantage of that program as well.

It adds up to better health and a better learning environment at the school, Anello and teachers like Schaeffer note.

Glacier Bank also plans on continuing its support and would like to see other corporate businesses leaders and financial institutions contribute to the No Kid Hungry campaign. No Kid Hungry is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization. Individuals can donate as well.

For more information on the program, visit https://state.nokidhungry.org/montana/