VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — A new grant from No Kid Hungry Virginia is helping schools in the Commonwealth spice up their breakfast programs.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it’s one some kids don’t have access to.

Virginia Beach Public Schools said they plan to use their money to buy new carts to add more hot breakfast on-the-go options so students can take them along to class.

At Linkhorn Park Elementary School, kids are lining up to get their breakfast. Whether it’s Pop-Tarts, apples, milk or cereal, there’s plenty of options on the cart.

But thanks to a new grant, soon Linkhorn Park Elementary students will be able to get hot food on the go, also.

“Right now, we can only serve them a cold breakfast out at the carts because they are cold carts,” said Rachel Amato, VBCPS assistant director of food services, “so we want to encourage that participation and have hot breakfast and hot food out there so they can get it and eat in their classroom and learn.”

Amato said they would love to serve warm food, like breakfast pizzas, quesadillas or burritos from their new carts.

“We want to really make those carts as much like the cafeteria as possible so we can have hot breakfast for these students,” Amato said.

This program also helps students who might have had a hectic morning or a late start have access to a good meal.

“That could happen due to different challenges they’ve had, maybe due to transportation or maybe coming to the cafeteria is out of the way to their classroom,” said VBCPS Director of Food Services Vicka Harrison.

Only about 30% of students at Linkhorn Park take advantage of breakfast, despite it being a Community Eligibility Provision School, or CEP School, which means all students receive free breakfast and lunch.

Harrison hopes having these new carts will encourage more students to grab a meal so they can thrive, too.

“They’ve shown reading scores improve by 1.5% [and] math scores improve,” Harrison said, “and not only are we helping students not be hungry, we’re also helping them perform better and learn and retain for the rest of the day.”

No Kid Hungry Virginia recently distributed more than $250,000 in grants to several schools across the state to fight food insecurity and improve Breakfast After the Bell Programs.

Schools can use the money however they wish, and however it would benefit students most.

Amato wrote the grant for new carts because she said breakfast participation has been increasing since they introduced the carts.

No Kid Hungry Virginia said about one-in-10 kids in the Commonwealth don’t know where their next meal is coming from. That’s why improving access to healthy meals for students is always important.

“School breakfast supports with better attendance, better focus, better classroom behavior, [and] it’s linked to higher scores on tests,” said No Kid Hungry Virginia Director Sarah Steely, “so starting that day with a strong start a healthy breakfast that’s the key to so many different things.”

Steely said the program also helps reduce the stigma of who has access to school meals and takes stress off parents too.

“Parents have so much going on in the morning,” Steely said, “so I love the Breakfast After the Bell program as a means of supporting parents and caregivers first thing in the morning and saying, ‘Hey, don’t worry about breakfast we are going to take care of it.'”

Virginia Beach was one of about a dozen school divisions across the state that was awarded grant money from No Kid Hungry Virginia to help with improvements and upgrades to their Breakfast After the Bell Programs.

“We know that when kids feel better, they do better,” Steely said, “whether that’s in school or in a basketball game on a Thursday night.”

If you have a student in Virginia Beach City Public Schools and aren’t sure if it’s a CEP School, you can find out here.