The Palm Beach County School Food Service Department has been growing the Power Up With Free Breakfast program over the past 11 years, each year adding more schools to be able to reach the goal of providing a free breakfast for all students. Now that all schools, including Charters, are participating in the breakfast program, we have seen a large increase in the number of students choosing to have breakfast at school. We fed nearly 8 million students in the 2014 – 2015 school year, more than doubling the number of breakfasts served since we began the program in 2004. In addition to the regular school year, we served 325,266 breakfast meals during summer school.

Marketing has been a very important factor in our success. The School Food Service marketing team created posters for each of the grade levels, which are displayed in the cafeteria to encourage students to eat breakfast at school. We have sent flyers home, used Parent Link to advertise the program to parents and also created a multi-page booklet that is sent to every student’s family that highlights information for our programs including the Free and Reduced Meal application process, the free breakfast program and the After School Snack Program.

We believe that marketing is an essential piece of the puzzle. It has helped to spread the word about free breakfast since studies show that hungry children arriving at school have less energy available for cognitive and social activities. Simply stated, hungry children cannot learn. Our department’s vision of Kid’s First will continue to be a priority in our goal to get the word out about the benefits of free school breakfast.