We like a program starting at Marquette Area Public Schools this summer that will provide free meals for anyone wanting or needing them.

The initiative, through the United States Department of Agriculture Summer Food Service Program, will see lunches offered from noon to 12:30 p.m. at Marquette Senior High School and 11:30 a.m. to noon at Graveraet Elementary School, with breakfast offered 8 to 8:30 a.m. at Graveraet. Things will kick off Monday and will run until Aug. 15.

Although no formal sign up is needed, and income isn’t a consideration, we’re betting more than a few kids will take advantage of it.

“With this program, the children, students don’t even have to be from Michigan. They can be from anywhere in the country, they just have to be, for the most part, 18 years and under, show up, have a lunch or breakfast and be on their way,” said Chris Collins, food services director at MAPS. “It’s a very, very flexible program, for the community, for the kids, for the families.”

At MSHS, those who wish to receive a meal will enter through the canopy entrance, a Mining Journal story on the matter stated. At Graveraet, the entrance will be through the cafeteria doors facing the playground.

We’ve used this space in the past to opine that hunger in the land that all-but invented the land of milk and honey is nothing short of an outrage. That our children — that anyone — should experience food insecurity should be an affront to all of us.

We sincerely applaud MAPS officials for taking the steps necessary to get this effort up and running. We wish they didn’t have to.