Every day, millions of students receive meals at schools across the United States. The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted program that operates in public and non-profit private schools. It provides meals to around 30 million children nationwide. About 20 million of the students meet requirements for a free lunch, or light meal, during the school day. About two million others qualify for a reduced price. They pay 40 cents a day for lunch. The nearly eight million remaining students are charged the full price for their meals. But some of their parents may struggle to pay these costs. Over the years, U.S. schools have tried different methods to collect unpaid lunch money. But not all of these methods are popular. Rhode Island school officials learned recently that denying children a hot meal led to strong criticism on social media. Some parents had not paid lunch money for their children. So the school district had planned to serve the children cold sandwiches. But after receiving hundreds of comments on Facebook and angry telephone calls, the school district last week canceled the plan.