Teddy Waszazek led the universal free school meals campaign in Vermont, and now they’re a law in the state. Here he shares what he learned.
Episode Notes
This month, I’d like to introduce you to Teddy Waszazak. Teddy is a policy advocate and community organizer who rose through the ranks in Vermont. Now he’s an advocacy manager at a nonprofit organization, Hunger Free Vermont. It’s a food policy organization where the mission is to “end the injustice of hunger for everyone”. Teddy is also a council person in the city of Barre and is the youngest person ever elected to the position. He’s someone who believes that anyone can change our unfair and often inhumane systems, and we’ll talk more about how he got into this line of work in a few minutes.
To me, universal free school meals are one of the most cost-effective and least objectionable ways to help people that I’ve come across, both immediately and in the long run. They promote good nutrition, they reduce stigmas that the income-driven school meal system often creates, and they improve the quality of school menus, among other benefits. Feeding kids shouldn’t be a controversial issue in my opinion, but it is— “big government” has been a common opposition point I’ve seen from some states, especially in the South. Teddy and I will talk about why this was a tough sell for some in Vermont, too, and how they were eventually won over.
Talking with Teddy inspired me to pursue this as an issue where I live. I emailed a couple of my state representatives to talk with them about some pending universal school meal bills. I’m also planning to attend some committee sessions at my state capital to see how those go. Something about our conversation helped me realize that politics, especially local politics, doesn’t have to be intimidating. It’s ultimately built on relationships, like the rest of our society is, and if someone like Teddy can create those relationships, then so can the rest of us.
Here’s my conversation with Teddy Waszazak, Advocacy Manager and Legislative Policy Lead at Hunger Free Vermont.
Related Links
- The website for Hunger Free Vermont is hungerfreevt.org.
- Check out Hunger Free Vermont on social media: Facebook, Instagram, and X/Twitter.
- To check the status of universal free school meals in all states, visit Healthy School Meals for All from the Food Research and Action Center, a national nonprofit organization.
Interview Transcript (Draft)
Please note: Microsoft 365 generated the transcript below. Parts have been lightly edited but it may be incomplete.
Josh
I get the impression that you started out in food service and you made the transition at some point into doing food policy with Hunger Free Vermont. How did you get into that?
Teddy
Yeah. I came to Hunger Free Vermont and food policy work through electoral campaign work. I was working at Dunkin’ Donuts in Vermont. I’d worked at Dunkin’ Donuts [stores] all throughout New England, and I was managing a store in Vermont.
The State House that year was debating a minimum wage bill to raise the minimum wage to, at that time, the bill was for $15.00 an hour. Economic justice has always been something that I’ve been very interested in and passionate about, so I started going to the State House hearings. The one great thing with Dunkin’ Donuts is I got to work at like, 3:00 AM. I was out by 9:00 or 10:00 AM, so I could make it to the State House on time.
Josh
Oh, how funny. I guess it is a perk.
Teddy
Yeah, free coffee at 2:00 AM and you get out early.
I would go over to the State House, still in my Dunkin’ Donuts uniform, and I would sit in the committee rooms and listen to them talk about the minimum wage bill. Through that, I started talking to folks and building relationships.
Eventually I got my first campaign job and I worked on a couple of electoral campaigns. After the 2020 election, I had worked on a presidential race, I worked on a congressional race, some local races, some statewide. I’d done all this work around these candidates who get elected to go make decisions and make policy. I became really interested in the, like, “Okay, once these folks are elected, how do we actually get policy through?” That led me to look for issue advocacy jobs.
A friend of mine that I met through electoral work saw the job opening at Hunger Free Vermont and recommended that I apply for it, and I did. I got the job as the Universal School Meals campaign manager. I ran that campaign for about 2 1/2 or three years by the time we actually got the permanent bill passed.
It was the perfect landing spot for me. I grew up as a free lunch kid. My home life was very complicated, so my paperwork often fell through the cracks. I was hungry a lot at school for realistically no fault of my own just because of bureaucratic paperwork, policy stuff. I definitely felt very passionately about the universal school meals campaign. When I first heard about it and then being able to, like, really get in the trenches of the State House and work on the policy work was very satisfying.
When we achieved our goals, when we got permanent universal school meals in Vermont, we were the sixth state in the country. It was very exciting hearing that an issue that we had worked on for so many years was now the law in the State of Vermont. I grew up in Massachusetts, they also have universal school meals right now. Just knowing I was able to work on an issue that directly solved one of the problems that I experienced when I was a school age child was really powerful for me.
Josh
You have a first-hand account of the benefits of universal school meals then.
Teddy
Absolutely.
Josh
I’m aware because I was a free meals kid too. I guess some of the benefits for kids would be there wouldn’t be any bullying due to, you know, being a “poor kid”. There are students that go without meals, or they don’t get enough to eat at home. Those meals make up the difference while they’re at school so they can concentrate and do better. Are there any other benefits that I’m missing?
Teddy
No, I think those are the two big ones: the hunger aspect, the pure food security aspect of it, as well as the stigma. Schools and school districts, particularly in the Northeast but across the country as well, have made good strides. You know, 20-30 years ago it was you got literally a different color ticket if you were a paid kid or a free lunch kid.
Josh
I remember that. Yeah.
Teddy
That was extremely stigmatizing. Over the years schools definitely made efforts to reduce that stigma in the cafeterias.
One of the things that I said throughout the campaign is that kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. You can try to hide the stigma. You can try to hide the differences, but kids are smart. They know they talk to their friends. When you have a non-universal system, when you have a means-tested system, they’re always going to find a way to identify that.
The other thing you mentioned, the food security thing— Economic status and income levels and all of that have a huge impact on that, but just because a kid’s family is well off doesn’t mean they’re necessarily getting the care or attention that they need at home. Even if a family can afford to feed their kid every day, it’s not a guarantee that that kid is actually getting that food every day. For a lot of kids of all economic status, for a variety of reasons, the school meals are the one guaranteed thing that they have every day.
That’s what universal school meals really accomplishes is that, regardless of your income status, regardless of your background, when you are at school for eight hours—like you’re legally mandated to be—you will get a breakfast and a lunch every day. That was really important.
I think too that, in the pre-universal school meals world, there was an assumption that, you know— we just talked about both of us being free meal kids. There’s an assumption that everyone who needs, from an economic perspective, a free meal is getting one under the federal system, and that’s just not true. We identified a huge segment of the population here in Vermont that we called the “missing middle”, which is they made too much money.
Josh
Right.
Teddy
To qualify for free or reduced school meals, but they did not make enough money to meet their basic needs in Vermont for a family of four, the cutoff for free school meals was around $54,000. Here and we have an office in Vermont called the Joint Fiscal Office. They’re like the mathematicians of the legislature and they every year put together a basic needs budget, which is how much does it take at a minimum, to meet your basic needs in the state of Vermont. So that’s your housing cost, your grocery costs, your healthcare. Their transportation, all of that added together, and they calculated that a family of four needed $77,000 just to make ends meet in Vermont. But the cutoff was $54,000 and you have a ton of families in Vermont who are making between 54 and 77. We identified them. We called them the missing middle, and that represented about 1/4 to 1/3 of the total population of students in Vermont schools. So when you know. Folks would say like. Well, we’re already taking care of our most vulnerable. Like, no, you’re taking care of the people who literally cannot make ends. Meet but there’s. This whole other stratum of you know in. Popular talking point of what are we doing for working families? There’s 10s of thousands of working families in Vermont that aren’t making enough money to get by but don’t qualify for free school meals. And you know, with universal school meals that just doesn’t exist anymore. So yeah, the the benefits of it are just, you know, it’s the stigma. It’s the nutrition, but it’s also just about economic justice and a level playing field that all of our kids, regardless of their economic background, are getting the same opportunities in school.
Josh
The question that comes to my mind when I think about. The the controversy of Universal Free School meals is what is society for like you know, why do why do we all get out of bed every day and and? Provide services for each other you know, like especially for kids. You know, we we shouldn’t. I mean, in my opinion, of course we shouldn’t punish kids just because of their circumstances or their upbringing, because they have no control over.
Teddy
Yeah. No. And I mean it, it’s it. It’s even to our neighbors, New Hampshire, who definitely do not have universal school meals and actually in. Fact, I think it was last year it might have been the year before at one point, their legislator voted down, taking free federal dollars to expand who would get like they’ve taken the opposite. Approach in almost every way. And I bring that up because my dad and one of. My little sisters. They live in New Hampshire right now, just outside of Manchester, and she, my little sister, was receiving meals without being able to pay for them. And at the end of the school year, my dad got a call from the school district.
Josh
OK.
Teddy
Saying that her account was negative, hundreds of dollars, and if that account wasn’t paid, she would not receive full meals for the next trade. When they came back in September. And you know my my dad’s been disabled for. Since 2012, so like for 12 years now and my step moms, a nurse, and we all know how underpaid nurses are. So it’s like they don’t have a couple extra 100 bucks to throw for the food that my little sister needs just to, you know, to fulfill her role. Yeah. So that just what you said just resonated with me. Like as a society. If we are all here to care for each other, especially the kids. Especially in school, where they are legally mandated to be the least we can do is just help them meet their basic needs. At that time they have food.
Josh
Yeah. So while you were working on this campaign, what was some of the opposition that you faced? Like what what were some of the talking points that you got in response arguing against the the notion of free universal school meals?
Teddy
The biggest one was to use the vernacular was why are we paying to feed the rich kids because the our universal school Meals bill is paid out of the education fund and the Education fund in Vermont is funded largely through property. So there were a lot of talking points of, you know, why are we going to raise taxes on lower and middle income families to pay for the school meals of those children who are coming from wealthier families. And there’s a few answers to that question in Vermont. Frankly, we don’t have that many wealthy. Families, those wealthy families that we do, are often sending their children to private schools. So we’ll we’ll just start and like that’s, you know, that’s a different from state to state that looks different, but that in Vermont specifically we have like there are some resort areas and but most of our wealthy families are usually like out of Staters.
Josh
That’s a good point, yeah.
Teddy
Or again those that. Are in Vermont are typically sending their children to private schools. So there’s that aspect of it. There’s the fact that, you know, we were bringing in because of the way our bill was written. We are bringing in 10s of millions of federal dollars into the state to help pay for the program. And yeah, there are multiple federal school nutrition programs and you opt in to whichever one works best for your state. There are really four or five different provisions that you can choose from, and basically if you want to do the universal school meals provision, which does get you the most federal dollars, you have to feed every student who goes to a public school. It’s that black and white. So at also at a basic level, it was like. Even if you do believe that we shouldn’t be feeding the rich families if you want this 10s of millions of federal dollars, you’re gonna have. To give those. Kids in that public school. Those meals, regardless of their income anyway. So that was a pushback that we got and it it’s a pretty weedy answer and like I talked about earlier, you know there is a, there is a very real concern. Of how kids are being taken care of, right? Now, and just because you’re family, what I would always say to that is there are no rich kids, there are rich parents and we have no way of knowing whether those rich parents are actually providing for those children at home and and they have to go to school just like everybody else. And also it’s it’s a basic educational equity.
Josh
That’s true, yes.
Teddy
Issue you know, like it’s just a basic part of the school day and educational equity is making sure that you are fed and that you’re prepared to learn and do your job as a student when you’re in school and to connect that back to the rich kids thing. You know, we don’t ask. Students, what their families income is when we’re figuring out what textbooks should be in the classroom. When we’re figuring out what teachers are going to be when we’re deciding whether or not kids are going to be able to take the. School bus to school. Those are all just as fundamental to the educational experience as the school meals are. But for whatever reason, when we were. Talking about food. We were asking for an intense. And invasive amount of paperwork and income information from families.
Josh
It seems like it would be less work, at least at the school level, because they wouldn’t have to collect all the income level documentation and and try to bother parents to get them to fill out these forms. You know, if everybody’s approved, then that system is no longer needed.
Teddy
No. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s a it’s, it’s a much less, it’s much less burdensome on the school administration. It’s much less burdensome on the school nutrition staff who in Vermont, like the school nutrition, we have a school nutrition association in Vermont, which is all the they’re self-described, lunch ladies and lunch labs. They were said this bill would not have passed if that organization and those folks were not as in this with us as they were, they were absolute superstars for a variety of reasons. But one thing that you know, I didn’t really register until I started working on the campaign. And then once I saw it in action, recognized how powerful it is. They don’t have to staff the cash registers, they don’t have to spend all that extra time. It speeds up the line because they’re not worried about taking cash or doing this, that or the. Other thing but. The secret there is it’s not as if they’re cutting a staff position. That person, who used to be focused on the cash register is now in the kitchen, focusing more on the preparation, the quality of the meals. There’s we have one school district that we were working with, the school nutrition folks there were. Awesome. And because of universal school meals, they were able to take their person off of the cash register and they used that savings to hire an in house Baker. So if you go to Essex Westford High School in Essex, Vt and you get a roll with your pasta for lunch. That role was prepared, baked and made in Essex Westford High School that.
Josh
That’s great.
Teddy
And there’s just so many tangential benefits intangibles like that because of a result of this program. So that not only are more kids eating, period, they’re eating better, healthier, fresher and all of that is possible because. Of the Universal school meal.
Josh
We discussed before that the the campaign is, I guess, officially over you. You had like a wrap up period. And some reflection. But now you’ve moved on to other issues. What other issues are you working on?
Teddy
Yeah. So what we’re moving into now is we have a state campaign this year called give 3 squares, Vermont, a boost 3 squares. Vermont is our what we call snap benefits. Each state is allowed to pick their own name for what they call snap benefits. So ours is 3 squares, Vermont. And we are proposing 3 expansions to snap. There’s a interpretation of the rules that allows for Community College students to become eligible for three squares benefits by counting their college work as work. So like right now, they’re you have to do your school work and also meet. Other labor requirements there is a way to count that school work as work, so we’re working on that. That’s an administrative thing. We’re working on standing up. What’s called the restaurant Meals program, which allows elderly, disabled and homeless SNAP recipients to use their benefits at restaurants.
Josh
Oh, I’ve never heard of that. Interesting.
Teddy
Yep. So it’s approved restaurants and it looks different state to state. So like in Connecticut, their restaurant meals program is basically 2 franchises of subways they have like two dozen Subways across the state that you can go to. [laughs] Whereas in Chicago, they’ve stood up the program and they focused on, you know like. BIPOC, minority owned local restaurants, so it’s like a hodgepodge of downtown Chicago bodegas, restaurants from trucks, et cetera. Massachusetts is super focused on food trucks with their restaurant meals program, which I find very interesting. So we are working this year on, you know getting the ball rolling on designing that program for Vermont. And the third piece is raising the minimum benefit. Of snap benefits in Vermont, so the least amount of money you can receive while still qualifying for three squares. Vermont, which right now in Vermont is, I believe, $23 per month. Which is just. No one’s going to go through all this regular rolls for $23 and it. Doesn’t actually really help. With today’s prices and stuff, so part of the bill also charts have passed forward to make bringing the floor of those benefits up so that they more adequately meet the needs of folks on. From a greater. Organizational perspective, one of the reasons we chose this campaign next was because we feel like we just did a really big thing for K through 12. We just made a really big difference when it comes to youth food security. When it comes to, you know, taking care of, you know, want to talk about the most vulnerable. There’s no one more vulnerable. Students. So really taking care of those, but. Universal school meals, you know it. Did not directly help. Homeless folks, disabled folks, elderly SNAP recipients, college students don’t qualify for universal school meals. Once you graduate high school. So. Saw this campaign as a way to continue to put together the pieces of food security in Vermont.
Josh
That’s awesome. It sounds like the success that you’ve found in your own life and in working on these various campaigns comes down to, well, I guess 1. The motive, personal motivation to get involved. And then to to some extent, like organizing. So if someone wants to get involved in these types of issues, whether it’s the universal School meals program where they live in case it’s, you know, has it been passed yet or one of the other campaigns that you mentioned? What kind of advice would you give someone who wanted to get started in that kind of advocacy?
Teddy
Yeah. So you know, like going back to where we started is like this. Like the only reason I’m here doing food policy work is because I was interested. In the minimum wage. Bill, whatever six years ago now and I took it upon myself to go to the State House and start to talk to. People who were. Doing it so you know, I think my biggest piece of advice is just to find an issue that you really care about because the work is hard, organizing is hard. Advocating policy work lobby. Thing you know, we think of Vermont as like the Super progressive. It has a reputation. You know, it’s Bernie’s state, right?
Josh
Bernie Sanders, yeah.
Teddy
We have this reputation as like socialist utopia. Everyone is like it’s and it’s just not. That’s not the reality on the ground and you know, we have we have a Republican governor, but we also have a democratic supermajority in the Senate, or excuse me in. Both the House and the Senate, there’s a. Democratic supermajority to override a governor’s. And even with a democratic supermajority, it took us two years to convince the Vermont Democratic Legislature to feed. Kids in school. Right. And that and we had great champions and I’m very thankful by the end we passed we we have 150 members of the House of Representatives over 120 of them voted for. Universal school meals. It was a trip partisan bill, so this is not the way to knock any of the work that they. Did, but it’s just. Hard to make big changes to these systems, even when it’s something as simple as feeding kids. So I I say that because regardless of what issue you’re working on, if you don’t really believe in it and care about it to your core, it’s going to be hard to really get through the campaign and the campaign emotionally. So my biggest piece of advice would just be to find that whatever that issue. Just for you. Whatever issue that like, whether caring for kids, minimum wage, whatever it is, paid family leave, whatever it is, find that issue, you know, Google it, Google your state and your issue. Find out who’s working on it. Attend a meeting. Sign up for a newsletter so you can start getting updates. Because, you know, I found. That like 1. Meeting leads to another meeting. One conversation leads to another conversation and you know before you know it, you’re you’re running a campaign to feed the kids. So. So I also had a boss on an electoral campaign once. She was a candidate for governor and. Someone asked her in, like, the last couple of weeks of the campaign, whether she was still having fun. And she got really serious. And she said, like, listen, I have never committed to anything in my life that at the end of the day, I. Didn’t think would be a little. Fun and I just think that’s sort of like you have to find the joy it has to be something you care about. It has to be something that, you know, at the end of the day. Is going to. Make you happy, as silly as that sounds, because you just because the work is so hard, it has to be something that you really care about.
Josh
I love that your boss’s answer was like a perfect bit of. Some in the times when you’re doing this kind of work and it seems like you’re banging your head against the wall, there are these little joys you can find to make it worthwhile.
Teddy
Yes, absolutely no. And it was just and it was, yeah, that, that quote that was in back in 2018, it was one of the first campaigns I worked on and that quote because she just the way she said it was. Because she’s got so serious. She’s like, listen to me. You have fun. It’s like, OK, go ahead. Well fun. But yeah, no, absolutely. There’s always those moments to find joy and. Like so much of. The legislative process is just so ridiculous sometimes. There’s nothing to do but. Yeah. And you know, and that’s like and that’s also part of going to meetings and talking to people is like finding your folks, finding your team, finding the people who are going to, you know, help you go through all of the the punches that you have to go through to accomplish larger systemic change.
Josh
As we’re wrapping up here, is there anything you’d like to plug besides Hunger Free Vermont? Is there anything that you’re working on, or is there anywhere we can follow you online to keep in touch with you?
Teddy
Sure. Yeah. Yeah, there is Hunger Free Vermont. We are on, you know, all of the various social medias. Folks can always get in touch with me at my name is Teddy Waszazak. So it’s. T WASZAZAK at hungerfreevt.org and if you want to just talk about advocacy. Or it doesn’t even have to be food related. You know anything that folks wanna chat with me about about legislative policy, worker advocacy or campaigns or any of that stuff, I’m always happy to chat. So folks should definitely feel free to reach out. And yeah, I mean, and I what I would also just add is that like Hunger Free Vermont doesn’t exclusively work on, you know, traditional food security issues. We’re also a member. There’s a big paid family leave campaign happening in Vermont that we’re on the steering committee of, you know, expanding the child tax credit. And the earned income tax credit at the state level Hunger Free Vermont involved in that campaign as well. So while the campaigns we choose to be the leader on our traditional food security projects. We understand that you know someones ability to take care of their relatives directly impacts their food security. You know someone’s ability to. Make ends meet. Via the child tax credit or whatever, you know you have to pay your utility bill or the electric gets shut off. You have to pay your rent. The one thing that people can take from is their food budget. And that’s what leads to food insecurity. The. Most so understanding that it’s an intersectional issue. Hunger Free Vermont takes very seriously and making sure that there’s a strong enough economic support base for folks, even if it doesn’t sound paid family leave doesn’t directly sound like a food security issue, but it is because if you’re taking unpaid time off from work to take care of your spouse. Your child, your parent, your grandparent. The easiest place to cut that money. Is through your food budget. So these are all very interconnected issues.
Josh
Makes sense, yeah. Is there anything I haven’t asked that you’d like? To talk about.
Teddy
I think I would just actually, you know I mentioned the school Nutrition Association, the lunch ladies and lunch labs. We also had specifically two high school students Emma and Grace that came in and they worked with our campaign for two years and they were just they were sophomores. When I started working with them. And they were just absolutely amazing coming to the State House, talking to legislators, talking about what their experience actually receiving universal school meals was like.
Josh
Shout out to them.
Teddy
And they’re amazing. And without that, without the students and without the School Nutrition Association, I don’t think this bill would have happened. So just that’s important center the stories of the folks who are most impacted by this.
Josh
This was fun. Again, thank you for making time to talk with me and I. Hope we stay in touch.
Teddy
Awesome. Thanks so much, Josh.