As the Michigan Legislature races against the clock to avert a shutdown, one of the most consequential battles in the state’s budget negotiations centers on whether children from low-income families will continue to receive free breakfast and lunch at school.
For many students, those meals are not an added benefit but the only guarantee of food in their day. The possibility of losing them reveals the human cost of political dysfunction, especially for children already living with economic instability.
Senator Sarah Anthony, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, has made it clear that she is refusing to let this program slip through the cracks.
“I am fighting every single day, even though we are hours away from a government shutdown to make sure that kids can still rely on breakfast and lunch every day,” Anthony said in an exclusive interview with the Michigan Chronicle. “It is a major part of our budget negotiations. And as one of the individuals who’s in the room fighting really hard for this program, I can tell you that it’s something that has to get done.”
Her urgency is rooted in both policy knowledge and lived experience. A few weeks ago, she volunteered at a local Lansing school, serving meals to children who rely on the program. That moment solidified her stance.
“The fact that this is really oftentimes the only time that kids eat every day,” she said, “it should be an example of something that’s not political, it’s not partisan. It’s just the right thing to do.”
The senator points to what she calls a contradiction that should never exist. The state has the resources. Revenue projections show the money is available to sustain the program, yet its future hangs in the balance of negotiations.
“The thing that is frustrating to me is that we actually have the money to do it,” Anthony said. “We have the ability, we have the financial resources to feed every single child breakfast and lunch. And so if we have the money and we’re hearing from parents that it’s important to them, I just don’t see why we would even contemplate cutting this type of investment for kids.”
School leaders, however, are already bracing families for the worst. Emails have gone out warning parents that if a deal is not reached, districts will no longer be able to guarantee free meals. For families who rely on the program, that message brings fear and confusion. For children, it risks public embarrassment and hunger in the classroom. Anthony has heard these concerns echoed across the state.
“That’s right, I’ve heard it,” she said. “I’ve heard it from superintendents and principals all over the state that because of dysfunction and instability in the state capitol that they’re making those tough decisions.”
Her message to them is to wait until the last possible moment before disrupting meal service.
“I would ask them to not make any knee-jerk reactions and knee-jerk decisions to what’s happening in Lansing, but to continue to the very last moment to ensure that kids are eating every day,” Anthony urged. “We’re fighting to make sure that there’s no actual interruption of that service, but I understand that superintendents feel like they have to do what they have to do so hopefully we have encouraging news in the next couple of hours that again, continue our commitment to parents and to students.”
Anthony’s defense of the program touches on a larger truth: free school meals goes deeper than just nutrition. They are about equity, dignity, and the ability for children to learn without the distraction of hunger. In districts with majority Black and Brown student populations, including Detroit, access to meals helps counter generations of systemic barriers that make poverty disproportionately likely. Advocates often point out that hunger in schools isn’t neutral—it reinforces racial and economic inequities when children from low-income families are forced to go without food or face public shame over unpaid meal debt.
Michigan parents have testified to the relief this program has brought. For working families already stretched thin by housing and utility costs, the elimination of cafeteria bills is both a financial and emotional lift.
“It’s something that all across the state parents have said has been a game changer for their families,” Anthony said. The sentiment captures why cutting the program would represent not just a loss of food but a reversal of progress made toward easing the burdens families face.
Still, uncertainty remains. Lawmakers continue to trade proposals, searching for consensus before the deadline. The stakes are high, and the margins for error are slim. Anthony, who has spent nearly every hour inside the Capitol this week, described the intensity of negotiations.
“I’m optimistic,” she said. “We have been working around the clock. I’ve been in the Capitol every single day, almost every single hour, leaving sometime in the middle of the night trying to negotiate these last pieces. So I am optimistic that we will get to a resolve on the school’s budget and we can prevent superintendents from having to make those types of decisions.”
Budgets, Anthony reminds, are not simply financial documents. They are moral commitments. Whether or not the state protects free school meals will reveal how Michigan leaders define their responsibility to children, especially those in the margins. Her presence in the room, holding the line for families who cannot afford to lose, is an example of why leadership matters.
It matters to a child in Detroit who needs lunch to make it through math class. It matters to a parent in Lansing who counts on breakfast at school to start their child’s day. And it matters to every community where the measure of fairness is whether the state will step in to ensure children are not punished for the poverty they did not create.
For families across Michigan, the hours ahead will decide whether the cafeteria continues to serve as a place of nourishment or becomes another reminder of inequality.
As Anthony put it, this fight is simple—ensuring that the most basic guarantee of food remains intact. “Again, as we’re looking at hours away from a government shutdown,” she said, “it’s something that I’ve continued to hold the line to make sure that we don’t remove that program.”
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