UPDATE about free school meals! 

The Diocese of Alexandria Child Nutrition Program was approved by the Louisiana Dept. of Education to begin serving FREE breakfast and lunches to all actively enrolled students in any one of our eight Catholic schools (St. Anthony, St. Mary Assumption, St. Joseph, Sacred Heart, Holy Savior Menard, OLPS, St. Frances Cabrini, and St. Mary Elementary & High)! This is in thanks to the USDA approving school systems to receive funding under the USDA Summer Food Service Program.

School systems can serve free meals to all children until the end of the 2020-2021 school year. This unprecedented move will help ensure no matter what the situation is on the ground that children have access to nutritious food as the country recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic. USDA has been and continues to be committed to using the congressionally appropriated funding that has been made available.

ALL enrolled students in our schools are eligible to receive ONE free breakfast AND ONE free lunch each day with NO paperwork for families to complete! Free meals will continue through May 2021.   We will continue to accept Free and Reduced Meal Applications during this time.

Students will also be able to continue to purchase second servings of menu items, and all Smart Snack items, juices and bottled water as long as there is money in their lunch accounts to do so or be prepared to pay with cash.

All positive meal account balances will remain in the student’s account.  We encourage parents to take this time to catch up on all outstanding charges their child may have at this time.

We encourage all students to participate.  The Diocese of Alexandria greatly appreciates USDA for addressing the critical challenges shared by our employees serving students on the front lines and by allowing our school nutrition professionals to focus on nourishing children for success.

Sincerely,
Thomas Roque, Superintendent of Schools
Janet Burgess, Supervisor of Child Nutrition Program