Through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a federal meal service program, students in the Macomb, Bushnell-Prairie City and West Prairie school districts will have meals provided at no charge twice a day this upcoming school year.
The program allows eligible, high-poverty schools and school districts to serve free breakfast and lunch to all enrolled students without collecting household income applications. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the program, the CEP eliminates the stigma of free meals, reduces administrative paperwork and speeds up cafeteria lines.
Schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students categorically eligible for free meals based on their participation in other specific means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
According to Macomb Community Unit School District (MCUSD) No. 185 Superintendent Mark Twomey, breakfast and lunch will be served to all students, at no cost, at MacArthur Early Childhood Center and Lincoln, Edison and Macomb Middle schools. Twomey explained that the CEP program is not yet available at the high school as at that level, students self-report; therefore, the poverty rate numbers are not high enough to qualify. The Illinois Report Card data shows, from 2025, the Macomb High poverty rate at 48.3 percent.
'However, we do monitor those numbers annually and they are rising, so when we do hit the qualifying number, we will include the high school students in the CEP program so we can provide free meals across our entire District,' Twomey shared.
The entire MCUSD 185 poverty rate, according to the 2025 Illinois Report Card, is 56.7 percent, compared to the state average of 49.7 percent.
Lincoln School's rate is 63.3 percent, while Edison's rate is 63.6 and Macomb Middle School is 50.7.
Bushnell-Prairie City Community Unit School District No. 170, with a poverty rate of 60.9 percent, will provide meals to students in grades Pre-K-12. BPC's Elementary School's rate is 64.3 percent; the junior high is 58.3 percent, and BPC High School's rate is 57.1 percent.
West Prairie Community Unit School District No. 103, with a rate of 50.5 percent, will provide meals to students in grades K-12. West Prairie South's rate is 46.4 percent; West Prairie North Elementary is 58 percent; WP Junior High is 40.5 percent, and WP High is 53.5 percent.
