The children at Public School 48 in Hunts Point file into the cafeteria in waves of 200 to 250 at a time. Starting at 10:30 a.m., students go through the line and sit at formica-topped tables to eat a total of 850 lunches a day. Across the street in the Early Childhood Center, another 200 pre-kindergarteners go through the same noontime routine.
All of the lunches are free. For now.
That may change if the Welfare Reform Bill passes the Senate in its present form. With Congress back from spring recess, the hotly debated school lunch issue will be plopped on its legislative plate.
"If you're going to learn you need something in your stomach," said Lora Lucks, the principal at P.S. 48, which has the largest number of pre-K through fourth-graders in Community School District 8. "Sometimes these meals are the only meals they get."
The Welfare Reform Act, which passed in the House on March 24, would restructure federal funding for school lunches by giving states block grants instead of providing money on a per-student basis. A provision in the bill would allow the state to use up to 20 percent of the block grant money for other welfare programs.
Given the budget-slashing frenzy in Albany, Lucks speculates that lunch money will dwindle.
"With a block grant allocation, they will give the same amount of money to the state, but the state is not obligated to use it all on school lunches," she said. "In the beginning, there may not be any cuts, but it's not just the first year that we're concerned with."
The impact could be sizable -- particularly at P.S. 48. The school stands in the heart of the poorest congressional district in the country. According to the city Human Resources Administration, 56 percent of Community Board District 2 residents were on some form of public assistance in 1992.
Rep. Jose Serrano of the South Bronx, a Democrat who voted against the bill, said the impact on his district would be "devastating."
Bronx schools served over 21 million free lunches in the last academic year. In school district 8, 3.4 million lunches were served -- approximately 88 percent of them for free.
Parents at P.S. 48 are angry about the threatened cuts and have launched a letter-writing campaign to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Gov. George Pataki and New York's senators, Democrat Patrick Moynihan and Republican Alfonse D'Amato.
"I think it's very important for parents to know that they can question something," said Milta Mercado, who has a first- and a third-grader at the school.
Parents fear that they'll have to start paying for school meals. In the proposed legislation students qualify based on a sliding scale. A family of five, for example, must earn less than $22,464 a year to get free meals and less than $31,968 for reduced-price meals, which cost 25 cents for lunch and 3 cents for breakfast. Full-price lunch costs $1 and breakfast 35 cents.
Sonia Rivera, president of the parents association at the school, has four children in the public schools -- one at P.S. 48.
"The food stamps they give you isn't enough if you have to pay for meals in schools -- even if you budget," Rivera said. She receives $258 a month in food stamps for her family of five and about another $650 in other public assistance.
She said that even the extra $20 a month she might have to spend on school meals would be a strain. "It's getting hard for me now as it is."