Let’s Grow Kids

Let’s Grow Kids (LGK) set out with a bold ten-year goal: high-quality, affordable childcare for all Vermont families by 2025. In 2023, they achieved a historic victory with Act 76, securing $125 million in recurring state funding and creating thousands of new childcare spaces statewide.

As LGK sunsets in 2025, many partners are stepping up to sustain this critical work, including Building Bright Futures, the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children (VTAEYC), and Children’s First Finance. In addition, The Vermont Early Childhood Advocacy Alliance played a key role in the Act 76 win and continues to advance childcare while also addressing food security, housing, mental health, and broader family wellbeing.

Ending Childhood Hunger in VT

In Vermont, children face major barriers to getting nutritious food.

The Ending Childhood Hunger Initiative, supported by the Turrell Fund and National Life Group and with lead partners including Hunger Free Vermont, the Vermont Foodbank, and Feeding Champlain Valley, is working to change that.

Building on the success of Universal School Meals, this initiative will expand access to nutritious meals in early care and education settings, afterschool and summer programs, and for children and families in rural communities, with the ambitious goal of ending child hunger in Vermont by 2035.

In March of 2026, Hunger Free Vermont officially published their report “Creating a Food Security Future for All Vermont’s Children” highlighting the Initiative’s progress so far.

There are 14 strategies identified to help create a food secure future for all of Vermont’s children, split into two parts: At Home and Education/Care Settings.

Since implementing Universal School Meals, schools are serving 2.5 million more meals to children annually. 

The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) which serves free meals to children throughout the summer during camps has been expanded to provide to-go meals and multi-day “meal kits” in rural locations – growing from serving 450,000 meals (2019) to more than 1 million meals (2024).

Hunger Free Vermont also piloted a partnership between Mount Abraham Union School District (School Food Authority) and Bristol Family Center (eligible Universal PreK program) – creating a replicable model for extending Universal School Meals to eligible pre-K programs.

The main win so far has been ensuring that the Universal School Meals Program is fully funded in the Governor’s budget for fiscal year 2027.