DAE help serve school lunch in the cafeteria as a child?

This is a really weird thing to ask, but did anyone else volunteer to serve school lunch in elementary school as a child? I grew up in the valley of California in the early 2000s and went to some poorer elementary schools where students could volunteer to help serve lunch in exchange for a free meal. I assume now that they couldn’t afford the staff and it was cheaper to just pay child volunteers with a meal. Looking back it was fun to get out of class early to help and stay late so you had enough time to eat. I assumed this was a normal thing until my spouse (who also grew up in Cali) had no idea that was even a thing 🤔