How The Tens Of Millions Of Kids Who Rely On School For Food Get Fed During Summer Break

[xchrom]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/22/3440715/summer-hunger-reform/



More than 30 million children in low-income households rely on the free or reduced-price school meals program for their nutritional needs, but when the school year ends their lives can be thrown into disarray. The current system for providing summer meals only serves about one fifteenth as many kids as rely on school-funded food during the academic year.

Caretakers must find a way to provide three times as many meals. “It’s hard enough during the school year, and in the summertime I really have to be extra careful,” said Jean C. of Scranton, Pennsylvania. “I usually do, in the summertime, go without eating. My kids, no matter what, they eat.”

“They’ll ask me, ‘mommy why aren’t you eating?’ and I’ll say, ‘oh I’ll eat after you guys eat,’” she said, a member of Witnesses to Hunger. Ten-year-old Jeredan, Jean’s oldest, started to pick up on what was happening last summer. “He would get so upset and say, ‘Well if you’re not eating, I’m not gonna eat because that’s not fair if you don’t eat.’ He gets really worried when that happens.”
Other families manage to narrowly avoid summer hunger thanks to federally funded non-profit programs in their communities that are targeted to recipients of free school meals. But even with that essential support, summers are harder on Hope, a Kansas City single mother of three. “It’s very tight in the summer,” she said. “There’s not as much food in the house as we normally have.”

After rent ($622), phone and electrical bills ($350), and her car payment ($400), the $1,800 Hope earns each month from her two jobs leaves the four of them to eat on just a few hundred dollars each month. All three of Hope’s children attend a summer program at their public housing development through a group called Phoenix Family.

[theHandpuppet]

1. Anyone wanting to help via the BackPack program can visit this site

http://feedingamerica.org/how-we-fight-hunger/programs-and-services/child-hunger/backpack-program.aspx#

[xchrom]

2. +1

[theHandpuppet]

3. In my home county these backpack programs really make a difference

A lot of poor children depend on school meals for basic food necessities. During the summer, however, that means a lot of these children will go hungry. I hope folks will consider contributing to a backpack program in their area.

[xchrom]

4. yeah -- i'm familiar with the program.

i think it's great.

[theHandpuppet]

5. I think it's pretty darn sad that it's even necessary

I see the GOP doesn't think urban kids need food. You have to wonder how bankrupt of soul you have to be to have it within your power to feed a hungry child, yet purposely deny them food. I just can't understand it.

[dem in texas]

8. Republicans want to starve them

Keep the lunches in rural areas, but not in urban areas. Who lives in the urban areas - minorities! But the Republicans claim they are not racists.

[closeupready]

9. Thank you.

[FSogol]

6. K & R. n/t

[Mnemosyne]

7. K&R nt

[theHandpuppet]

10. Kicking for the kids