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Thanks to These Activists, in New Mexico Schools There Is Such a Thing as a Free Lunch

Universal free school meals are a popular and effective way to help kids remain engaged in learning and boost local agriculture. Why does it take such a fight to make them policy?

Kids eating school lunch
Students eating lunch in the cafeteria at Lowell Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2023.(Susan Montoya Bryan / AP))

For Alejandro Najera, school lunch is a time to connect with friends: “We talk about our weekends, what we’re gonna do this summer—and gossip. Especially gossip.”

Of course, lunch is also a time for Najera and his friends to fuel their growing brains with tasty food. As the 12-year-old from Albuquerque told The Nation, when he hasn’t eaten properly, “I can’t concentrate. I’m just thinking about what I could eat.”

So when Melanie Maestas, then an administrator at his elementary school, asked him to write a speech promoting a bill that would make fresh, healthy meals free for all New…

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