(aka Summer Food Service Program)

Just as learning does not end when school lets out, neither does a child’s need for good nutrition. The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) provides free, nutritious meals and snacks to help children in low-income areas get the nutrition they need to learn, play, and grow, throughout the summer months when they are out of school.

How Summer Meals Runs

The Food and Nutrition Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, administers SFSP at the Federal level. State education agencies administer the program in most States. In some areas, the State health or social service department or an FNS regional office may be designated. Locally, SFSP is run by approved sponsors, including school districts, local government agencies, camps, or private nonprofit organizations, like the Community Food Bank!

Through the Community Food Bank’s Summer Meals Program free breakfast and lunch are offered to children living in rural locations during June and July. This meal program provides children with the nutrition they need to keep their bellies full, bodies and minds healthy and active over the summer. The children return to school in the fall healthy and ready to learn!

Qualifications

• Children, ages 18 and under, without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability
• Meals and snacks are also available to persons with disabilities, over age 18, who participate in school programs for people who are mentally or physically disabled.

Facts about Summer Meals

• One key way to measure the effectiveness of the Summer Nutrition Programs is to compare the number of low-income children eating during the summer to those eating during the normal school year.
• In Arizona, during the 2009-2009 school year, 417,767 children participated in the National School Lunch Program, but only 37,253 participated in the Summer Nutrition Programs (SFSP).\
• During June and July of 2010, approximately 15,000 meals (1sts and 2nds) were served to 1,296 children in rural Pima County.

*Resource: Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report 2010 (Food Research and Action Center)

Contact

For more information about the Summer Meals Program please contact Debra Leffler, Child Nutrition Programs Manager, at (520) 882-3285 or dleffler@communityfoodbank.org.