By Quinn Clifford ‘21

On Sept. 18, Principal Bob Alberts announced that on Sept. 21 Brother Rice would launch the addition of free daily meals for all students, faculty and staff. In response to the economic burden caused by COVID-19, this meal program is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture and is provided by Brother Rice’s current food service provider, Country House Restaurant. The free meal program includes a simple grab and go breakfast that will always contain fruit and a lunch that is limited to a daily special and a single beverage.

The daily free breakfast is a small snack pack that students, faculty and staff can get their day started with. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and on many days, people do not have time to eat before leaving the house in the morning. Even just an apple, an orange, a granola bar, or some cereal can do one’s metabolism wonders.

Senior cross country runner Eddie Burke said, “When I don’t eat breakfast in the morning, the free fruit gives me the energy to get going. Also, sometimes the mid-day power bar is the difference.”

The free lunch has one main entree along with one or two sides and more fruit. The free lunch specials are a bit smaller than the regular daily specials in the cafeteria. In order to provide a free lunch for all students, faculty and staff, it seems the focus is on packaging the most amount of meals rather than focusing on the size of each individual meal.

Senior wrestler Jack Botta said, “It depends on the specific meal if it is enough to fill me up. Regardless, I always bring my own lunch to make sure I have enough food to fuel me for training after school.”

The addition of the new free breakfast and lunch has somewhat negatively affected the production of the other food in the cafeteria. All of these daily meals just add to the number of meals that the hard-working lunch ladies need to prepare and organize for customers.

Junior Tony Macallio said, “I think the focus is way more on the free lunches right now and not so much on the regular food. With more food needing to be prepared each day, I think the quality of the food has gone down just a bit.”

Regardless of the quality or size of the daily breakfast and lunches, at the end of the day, the food is free and will get the job done.