Summer food - in January

It may only be January, but the City of Hartford Advisory Commission on Food Policy has already started a conversation about how children who rely on school meals eat in the summer time.

The federally-funded Summer Food Service Program provides breakfast and lunch to children in need during the summer.  However, in Hartford last summer, the numbers of children served dropped from the year before.  Yet, we know that, in the current economy, there are not fewer children in need.

When asked what we could do to increase the numbers, representatives of Hartford's two program sponsors, the school system and the recreation department, both said the same thing:  give us money to feed the parents, too.

The federal funds only provide meals for youth under the age of 19.  Many parents also need the meals and either come and eat part of the child's meal, or don't come at all because they cannot eat.

The Commission agreed to pursue funding to allow a pilot in a few sites this summer of providing meals for parents as well as children.  I'll be interested to hear more about the results of this pilot - it seems like a great potential public-private partnership to ensure that all of our residents have enough to eat.