the spring of 1912, the School Board established a Department of High School Lunches and directed that the food services be inaugurated in all the high schools of the city. During all this time the Home and School League had continued operating the feeding program in the nine elementary schools, and continued to do so until May 1915, when it reported to the Board that the need for a lunch system had been clearly demonstrated and that it could not be successfully operated by an organization outside the school system. As a result, the School Board placed the operation of both high school and elementary lunch programs under the supervision of the Department of High School Lunches and authorized the extension of the program to other elementary schools. Boston The New England Kitchen began offering school lunches in Boston as early as the 1890s, despite opposition from school janitors who supplemented their income with snack tables. In September 1908, the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston began to supply hot lunches to high schools which were under the supervision of the Boston School Committee. A central kitchen system was used and lunches were transported to the participating schools. In January 1910, an experimental program for elementary schools took the form of a mid-morning lunch prepared by the class in Home Economics three days each week. On two days of each week, sandwiches and milk were served. The children ate their meals at their desks, there being no lunchroom in the building. Before the end of the school year (1909–10) five additional schools were benefiting from the program, and a total of 2,000 pupils were being served each day, according to a report submitted by Ellen H. Richards in the "Journal of Home Economics" for December 1910. New York City At the end of 1914, more than 24,000 children were offered a homemade lunch. There was also a morning snack of crackers and hot milk offered for three cents to children who were considered weak or crippled. Early support Early federal aid As the scope of the meal supply expanded, local governments and school district boards could not provide the funds necessary to carry the increasing load. Supplementary contributions by charitable organizations and individuals did not suffice. Aid from Federal sources became inevitable. The earliest Federal aid came from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932 and 1933 when it granted