The Breakfast Break

The story of how the Utah Breakfast Expansion Team (UBET) was born, creating a partnership with various organizations and providing resources and advocacy to pass breakfast legislation to increase access and availability of school breakfast. This all lead to creation of Start Smart Utah.

Utah House Bill 222 creates the Start Smart Utah Program to expand access to school breakfast in public schools.

The School Breakfast Program (SBP) provides reimbursement to states to operate nonprofit breakfast programs in schools and residential childcare institutions. The Food and Nutrition Service administers the SBP at the federal level. State education agencies administer the SBP at the state level, and local school food authorities operate the program in schools.

The School Breakfast Program was established in 1966 as a two-year pilot project designed to provide categorical grants to assist schools serving breakfasts to "nutritionally needy" children. While the term "nutritionally needy" was not defined, the original legislation stipulated that first consideration for program implementation was to be given to schools located in poor areas or in areas where children had to travel a great distance to school. To encourage schools in needy areas to participate, Congress authorized higher federal payments for schools determined to be in "severe need." During the first year of operation, the SBP served about 80,000 children at a federal cost of $573,000.