INCREASING SUMMER MEAL PARTICIPATION

Children in Pawtucket, RI can get a free lunch this summer at the Public Library and the city pool through the Summer Meals program. The city’s financial status means that all children up to age 18 can take advantage of free summer meals. While 6,000 children receive free or reduced-price school lunch during the school year, only 1,500 participate in the summer program. According to USDA, 51,300 Rhode Island children participate in the National School Lunch Program, but only 5,940 received free summer meals. In many cases, children are not participating because families don’t know that the meals are available.

A food bank in Tennessee turned four school buses into “Lunch Express” buses to deliver Summer Meals to children in the rural hills near the Blue Ridge Mountains. The buses provide meals to areas where poverty rates have nearly doubled since 2009, and where two-thirds of children qualify for free school meals. For many of these children, the Lunch Express meal is the first, last and only reliable meal of each day.

Source: Food Research Action Council, 7/15/13, Summer Meals