Silicon Valley Community Colleges Launch First Universal Free Meal Program in US for Students

When Sophia Cuevas leaves for school at 7 a.m., like many students, she frequently runs out of time to eat breakfast or pack food.

“Usually I skip lunch if I’m on campus, because we had to pay for meals,” the 19-year-old West Valley College student said. “But now that there’s something that I can eat [for free] every day, I am no longer skipping lunch.”

Starting this fall, students enrolled in Santa Clara County’s West Valley-Mission Community College District are receiving one no-cost meal per school day. The new universal free meal program aims to lower barriers to higher education by addressing student food insecurity.

“Students continue to tell us that food insecurity was the biggest barrier that they faced,” district Chancellor Bradley Davis told KQED. “And we went about sculpting a program that would tackle that head-on.”

The program is the first of its kind among any college in the nation, according to Davis.

“Plenty of colleges have programs that address on a very limited basis food insecurity, but no other program applies to every single student at the institution,” he said.

Nestled within Silicon Valley, the district serves more than 17,000 students between its two colleges: West Valley College in Saratoga and Mission College in Santa Clara. About a third of district students reported struggling with food insecurity in the past 12 months, according to a survey.

“Every year, more community college students stop their educational process because of food and housing insecurity than those who start,” Davis said. The district seeks to limit those challenges with free, nutritious food.

For Cuevas, who lives at home with her mom and sister, the program means going to her business and economics classes, tennis practice and a campus marketing job with a full stomach.

“Being in a single-income household, it sometimes is a struggle to find something that’s both nutritious and at a right price for us, and we’re often left sacrificing one for the other,” Cuevas said. “[This program] takes off a ton of stress for not only myself but my family as well.”

Every in-person student enrolled in at least six units receives a meal card through the program that replenishes every Monday with a balance ranging from $30 to $60, depending on need. The balance can be used to purchase a freshly made meal from the cafeteria run by food service management company Thomas Cuisine. Students can also purchase snacks and coffee from vending machines and on-campus cafes.

“I have been a huge fan of the poké bowls,” Cuevas said. “It tastes really, really good … I’ve also heard some really good reviews about the Greek salad.”

Any unused funds each week expire on Sunday night.

The district celebrated the launch of the program and both colleges’ newly renovated cafeterias at ribbon-cutting ceremonies this week.

Davis estimates the program will cost about $2.5 million annually and said local property taxes will fund it.

The meal program has already served over 22,000 meals to students in its first two weeks, according to Davis.

“Given the advent of this new meal plan, our new coffee shops and our cafeterias have become jam-packed with students,” Davis said. “The other day I went over to sample the food in the cafeteria, and I could not find a single seat to sit down with students.”

Davis said the free meal program is not a direct response to federal cuts to food nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. However, “the timing is fortuitous given that there will be greater numbers of community members who are wrestling with food insecurity.”

Cuevas, who works as director of marketing at the Associated Students of West Valley College, said she and her peers are excited about the program and already using the funds to snack on coffee, apples, bananas and curly fries.

“We’re constantly inside of the office just snacking on everything from the cafeteria,” she said. “It’s good to know that we have full stomachs and we’re able to get a lot more work done.”

KQED’s Gilare Zada contributed to this report.