Summer food service program for children

Please note that dates, times, and locations are subject to change. Please check this page regularly for the most up-to-date information. Books and reading are key to preventing summer learning loss and this program was created to get books in the hands of youth! Participating meal sites are colored red on the map and are marked with an asterisk in the list below. In accordance with Federal civil rights law and U.

Department of Agriculture USDA civil rights regulations and policies, the USDA, its Agencies, offices, and employees, and institutions participating in or administering USDA programs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA.

Meal Site - click these icons for site details Public Education Dept. Meal Site - click these icons for site details Cluster of locations - click these icons to zoom in. Is Your Child Eligible? Learn More. It's one reason that, after Wright's death, he has helped with a food drive at his school, which has provided food to thousands of people in the area.

The help has been needed, especially because of the hardship created by the coronavirus pandemic. We can just see them clearly now. Congress created P-EBT early in the pandemic to replace the meals low-income children were missing when restrictions were imposed on proximity. Expanding it into the summer is in essence a new program that hunger advocates and experts have long called for.

Typically children are limited to the Agriculture Department's Summer Food Service Program, which critics say comes with a large amount of bureaucracy that limits its effectiveness. The summer programs reach only 16 percent of the children who need food assistance when school is out of session, according to the nonprofit No Kid Hungry. Direct payments for food, such as those done through SNAP, are much more effective, experts said.

But they come with a hefty cost. Advocates said it was a small price to pay to ensure that children didn't go hungry, and experts said that the money would go directly back into the economy and that it could also provide some savings in the long term by bringing down patient health care costs.

It also allows for meals to be picked up by parents for youth who are not present. Some sites might also follow a waiver guideline that lets them hand out more than one day's meals at a time to minimize the number of visits a family must make to the site. COVID Changes : This summer, sites will operate June 21 through August 25, , with additional precautions in place to minimize risk of illness while serving meals to the community.