The old adage “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” isn’t exactly true.

Area schools are serving more free lunches than ever before this year as families continue to struggle financially.

Nearly all public schools with hot lunch programs are serving more free or reduced-price meals to students this year.

Of the 13 Flathead County districts with federal meal programs, nearly all have watched their free and reduced numbers climb this year.

In nine districts, at least half the meals served are free or reduced-price. Six districts do not have hot lunch programs.

To qualify for free meals, a family of four must have an income of less than $28,665 a year. To qualify for reduced prices, a family of four must make less than $40,793 a year.

Percentage-wise, Evergreen serves more free or low-cost meals than any other district in the county. As of October, 73 percent of its meals were free or reduced, up from 71 percent the year before.

“We’ve actually been a little higher in the last couple years, just the way the economy is right now,” said Joan Jetsen, the district’s food services director.

Before, a 50 to 60 percent free and reduced rate was normal in Evergreen, she said. There are 716 students enrolled this year.

The district, which also prepares meals for West Valley and Helena Flats, feeds breakfast to 200 of its own students each day plus lunch for 620 to 650 students.

The school district also provides snacks for the Evergreen Boys and Girls Club. The district gives between 60 and 70 snacks a day to the club, where many of its children spend their after-school hours. Snacks are simple and healthy, such as a piece of string cheese and an apple, or breadsticks and fruit, Jetsen said.

The meals and snacks are important, she said, because there are many children who don’t eat much outside of school.

“They’ll say they didn’t really have anything for supper,” Jetsen said, adding that it isn’t always because there isn’t anything to eat at home.

“Sometimes it’s just the kids fend for themselves much of the time. It’s bedtime before their parents get home, so they just snack.”

Seventy percent of Olney-Bissell School’s 92 students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches this year, up from 60 percent last year, largely because several families have encountered tough economic challenges, district Clerk JeAnna Wisher said.

“We have some families who went from a nice income to nothing,” she said. “We have a lot of dads who’ve gone to North Dakota or South Dakota for work.”

While it’s never easy to watch families struggle, the increase in free and reduced numbers does benefit the school in some ways, Wisher said.

“In terms of school funding, it’s a nice thing,” she said. “We have more money coming in for the hot lunch program and more ... federal Title [I] money.”

Ann Minckler, principal of Helena Flats School, said the same thing.

“In one regard, it’s good because it qualifies us for more grants and stuff from the state,” she said. “Still, it’s not a good place to be.”

Half of her school’s 210 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, up from 36 percent last year.

In Columbia Falls, 57 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Of the 60,000 lunches Columbia Falls schools have served so far this year, 34,000 were free, Food Services Director Laurie Iunghuhn said. Sixteen thousand of the 20,000 breakfasts district cooks have prepared were free.

Those figures helped qualify Columbia Falls for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program; three days a week, children in the district’s three elementary schools get a snack of fresh produce.

Those snacks include items children might not normally try, such as pomegranates, papayas, kumquats and horned melons, Iunghuhn said. Some kids will bravely try anything; others are wary of more unusual fare.

“In one classroom a few days ago, we had purple snap peas,” Glacier Gateway Principal Dot Wood said. “One kid was going, ‘I love those peas; I’m going to eat all the extras.’ Another was going, ‘They’re ... purple.’”

With 28 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches, West Valley is on the low end of Flathead County’s spectrum. But the number is still higher than last year, Superintendent Todd Fiske said.

“We’re up quite a bit for us,”  he said. “Over the last two years for sure we’ve seen an increase.”

But the increase isn’t as high as Fiske suspects it could be. There are some parents who frown on any kind of assistance, he said.

“We continue to try and tell parents it’s very confidential, but I know it’s a chink in the armor for many,” Fiske said.

Applications for lunch assistance are confidential in every district and may be turned in at any time throughout the school year. But the beginning of the school year always is busiest; Iunghuhn said she was inundated with applications during the first month of school.

“We had over 400 applications this first month. Last year there were 300-something,” she said. “We keep pretty busy processing them.”

But it pays off for parents — and for the kids who get to eat the meals.

“It takes some of the burden off. I think it’s been a good thing,” Fiske said.

Applications for free and reduced applications are available at most school offices. Information about school nutrition programs, including free and reduced eligibility guidelines, are available at opi.mt.gov/Programs/SchoolPrograms/School_Nutrition.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.