Sac Unified’s free summer meals help stretch grocery budgets

A pizza pull-apart bread, strawberries, watermelon and chocolate milk were some of the summertime lunch options last week at Bowling Green Chacon Academy in South Sacramento.

Five years ago, California became the first state to launch a statewide universal meals program. The change required public schools to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students. Sacramento City Unified School District extends that support when students are no longer on campus every day.

The summer meal program provides free breakfast and lunch for children 18 and under at more than 50 campus locations during the summer break. Children who want free food don’t even need to be district students; they will feed any child, no questions asked.

The district serves about 30,000 meals a day during the school year, dropping to about 4,500 a day during the summer. Yolanda Marculescu, a lead chef for the district, said she knows firsthand how much the program can help families save money. 

“My son, I would send him to school to get lunch because we were a one-income family and it helped immensely,” Marculescu said. “We've had families come up and grab my hands and thank me because their kids got to eat that day.”

The summer meals program is funded through state meal reimbursements, not the district’s general fund. That means it is largely insulated from the school district’s  severe budget challenges.

According to a release for School Meals for All, a coalition that advocates for free school lunch nationwide, the program has served nearly 4 billion meals since it was signed into law in 2021. The coalition also cited a survey that found nearly 80% of parents said free school meals save their family money.

Diana Flores is the district’s executive director of school nutrition. She said the summer program does more than keep the kids fed. She said it keeps grocery budgets and food costs down for families throughout the region.

“It just helps the whole family, not just the student,” Flores said. “So, as long as we can offset some of the grocery costs, you're helping basically everyone. When we take on serving breakfast and lunch to the children in the household, there is more money left over for groceries for the rest of the home.”

Students are required to eat their meals on campus, but Flores said it gives children an opportunity to play on the playground or catch up with classmates they wouldn’t typically see over the break.

“If you have children at home and they’re bored, they tend to eat more,” Torres said. “So it’s like, this is a good way that they can just have something and help supplement some of the at-home stuff.”

Fourth grader Naziah Johnson said the meals have helped make summer school more fun.

“I’m having fun enjoying time with my friends and I did not know I would be able to see my friends,” Johnson said. “For lunch, I had a pizza bite and strawberries and chocolate milk and I really enjoyed that.”

Sacramento City Unified nutrition services staff serve lunch from the district’s Central Kitchen food truck at Bowling Green Chacon Language and Science Academy in Sacramento on Friday, June 26, 2026.Tony Rodriguez/CapRadio

At Bowling Green Chacon Academy, the school typically serves about 65 to 75 students on a summer day, plus about 10 to 12 families who are not enrolled at the campus but still come for meals.

A food truck is one part of that broader effort. The district has one truck that travels to different campuses and community locations serving food completely made from scratch. Marculescu said it helps attract students to meal sites, especially in areas with lower participation. About 60% of the district’s school-year menu is made from scratch. 

“We try to target places where there's low participation, because the food truck really does excite the kids and more of them come out,” Marculescu said.

Families can find summer meal locations, times and the food truck schedule on the district website.