Offering universal free school lunch is another way lawmakers think they could tackle a piece of the child poverty problem.

With students now fully back to school more of them will be eligible for free or reduced breakfast and lunch programs.

But hunger advocates are eyeing more ways to make those meals free and available to everyone.

Raven Santana reports from Newark.

I love school lunch.

My favorite part of lunch is when we start to eat.

Seven year old Matthew Francisco is just one of hundreds of students grades pre-K through eighth here at Oliver Street School in Newark that receives a school lunch.

According to federal data, nearly 400,000 of the 1.4 million students in Jersey received their free or reduced priced meal between 2019 and 2020.

And according to advocates, that number continues to rise.

Over 80% of our students receive free or reduced lunch.

Over 70% free lunch So once again we know that families that you know that that's just a figure that demonstrates that our families do lack the resources many times.

So you could have families earning double triple quadruple the amount of what of the cut off of the income limit.

And they're still struggling to make ends meet You know, it's very expensive to live in New Jersey.

The cost of everything has gone up exponentially, especially over the last couple of years.

We know that hunger and food insecurity is on the rise.

Last year, Governor Murphy signed a law expanding income eligibility for free or reduced price lunches to families making twice the federal poverty level, making about 26,000 more students eligible for those benefits the school year.

Now, lawmakers like Senator Teresa Ruiz are trying to pass a number of bills, including one that would phase in free school lunches for all students by 2028 and would cost $500 million.

So there is an expense like everything that there is.

I know states like California have have undertaken these tasks.

I don't think that New Jersey's far behind.

We just have to figure out how we can do this responsibly.

And so you've seen us kind of into where it's at expanding the first piece of legislation and bringing in more families.

And perhaps that's how we get to the finish line.

If a child forgets their money, let's say they're in that paid category.

The option would be to say, well, you know, either mom or dad has to bring money to school.

Someone in the school has to loan them money or they would not eat.

Advocates I spoke with say some districts like here in Newark, say they bear the brunt of difference in funding, which is why they say expanding legislation is critical.

The federal program has three categories of meals.

It has free, reduced and paid And in each category, the only category that's completely covered is the free category.

The reduced price individual has to pay a portion, and the paid is expected to pay the entire amount.

The challenge is to collect that additional funding are not necessarily worth the effort and the expense that it takes.

So we as a district have opted to feed our students and to all of our students for several years and to actually cover that cost out of the district's general fund.

When children come to school, the meals that they receive at school, sometimes are the only meals that they get.

So the reliance on what our school food service personnel do in order to ensure that students have access to nutritious meals every day is critical.

Advocates I spoke with are now optimistic that universal free lunch will be passed by January.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Raven Santana,