dailytarheel.com · Aruba Manzoor · September 7, 2026
Over 500,000 N.C. children qualify for free or reduced school meals. Federal SNAP cuts could cause decrease – The Daily Tar Heel
# Over 500,000 N.C. children qualify for free or reduced school meals. Federal SNAP cuts could cause decrease
School-age children receiving SNAP are automatically eligible for free school meals during the school year. State lawmakers and advocates say recent eligibility restrictions and cuts threaten automatic free school meal eligibility for thousands of North Carolina students.
Aruba Manzoor, Senior Writer • September 7, 2026
Ella Hardin
The cafeteria lunch line is one of the most familiar experiences in public schools. Students grab trays, pick up a carton of milk and make their way to the end of the long line. But what happens when a child reaches the register and realizes the meal in front of them is not free and they have no way to pay for it?
More than 1.2 million North Carolinians — largely working families — rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to afford the rising cost of groceries. School-age children receiving SNAP are automatically eligible for free school meals during the school year.
More than 500,000 children in North Carolina had qualified for free or reduced meals in April 2026. With recent changes to SNAP eligibility, that number is expected to drop.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in 2025, imposes new work requirements and noncitizen eligibility restrictions on SNAP.
“Alongside that, there is a cost share change that is happening,” Amy Beros, president and CEO of Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, said. “So more of the states are having to pick up more of the share cost of SNAP that is going into effect this coming year.”
Beros said schools use SNAP data to certify children for free meals without families having to go through another process, meaning changes to SNAP create administrative burdens for schools and districts.
N.C. Sen. Jay Chaudhuri (D-Wake) penned a letter alongside N.C. Sen. Jim Burgin (R-Harnett, Lee, Sampson) in a bipartisan urge for Congress to delay SNAP cuts and allow North Carolina to regroup and prepare more thoroughly for the changes. Several public health organizations, including Beros of the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, also signed the letter.
Increased paperwork requirements cause processes to slow down and fall through the cracks, ultimately resulting in fewer people receiving SNAP who need it, Andrew Harrell, programs and communications manager at Carolina Hunger Initiative, said.
“There’s just going to be more need and more hunger if fewer people are on SNAP,” Harrell said. “That’s going to create more reliance on school meals. It’s going to create kids who are hungrier, even if school meals are feeding them properly and can be accessed.”
The Community Eligibility Provision is another federal program that provides free meals to every child in a school, regardless of income or eligibility for SNAP. During the 2025-26 school year, more than 80 percent of North Carolina schools used the provision — roughly 1,900 schools statewide.
When SNAP benefits are cut, CEP eligibility drops, causing schools that remain eligible to lose enough federal reimbursement dollars — which are tied to the amount of students receiving free meals based on participation in programs like SNAP — that they’re no longer able to participate in the program, Chaudhuri said. He said based on conversations lawmakers have had with the Wake County Public School System, four schools could lose the ability to provide free lunch and breakfasts to their students through the program.
Once schools implement the CEP program, they are able to provide free meals for up to four years. In anticipation of SNAP changes, many schools have recertified for CEP early to protect against negative impacts, Harrell said.
“We don’t want schools and nutrition staff who should be worried about feeding healthy kids food to worry about all this data and admin stuff instead,” Harrell said. “We want them to be able to do the job we want them to do.”
September is Hunger Action Month, and changes to SNAP come amid a larger conversation about a hunger crisis across North Carolina. More than 1.7 million North Carolinians face hunger each year, including more than 504,000 children, Gov. Josh Stein said in a statement. The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines hunger as an individual-level physiological consequence of a prolonged, involuntary lack of food that can result in discomfort, illness, weakness or pain.
Even amid the uncertainty around federal funding for free and reduced school meals, efforts toward feeding children in the state continue.
School Meals for All NC is a statewide coalition advocating to provide free breakfast and lunch to every public school student in the state, regardless of household income. Carolina Hunger Initiative partners with school systems to expand access to healthy meals year-round for North Carolinians. The Food Bank for Central & Eastern North Carolina serves people across 34 counties to meet increasing hunger. Carrboro nonprofit TABLE delivers fresh food to more than 1,250 children across Orange County each week.
“Just because you might have lost access to one program like SNAP doesn’t mean that other programs are necessarily off limits to you, especially school meals,” Harrell said.
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