Passage of School Meals for All Legislation

In 2021, the Maine Street Solutions team worked with Full Plates Full Potential, a statewide nonprofit organization aimed at ending child food insecurity in Maine, to pass legislation to cover the cost of meals for all public school students in the state. We set forth on what we assumed might be a multi-year effort, given that we were proposing a dramatic shift to a long-standing program and that the bill had a significant fiscal note attached. However, we built a strong coalition and executed a strategic advocacy plan, resulting in the passage of the landmark legislation within one year.

A key to our success was strong, bipartisan legislative support. Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Aroostook) signed on as the bill’s prime sponsor and was a vocal champion of the policy. Senator Matt Pouliot (R-Kennebec) signed on as the lead co-sponsor and garnered support from others on his side of the aisle.

We also assisted our client in building a strong coalition to back the effort, planning and executing a successful public hearing, and mounting a significant lobbying effort in the halls of the State House. Nearly 1,000 people signed a petition supporting the bill, and more than 50 people testified in support at the hearing. No testimony was submitted in opposition to the bill. In the end, the legislation passed unanimously in the Senate and by a wide margin of 151-26 in the House.

The final stage in getting this project over the finish line was securing funding in the State budget. Our team worked with members of the Appropriations & Financial Affairs Committee and the Governor’s office to secure $10 million in seed funding in the biennial budget package passed by the Legislature. The following year, we worked with the Administration to secure full funding in their supplemental budget proposal.