Resource Library

Community eligibility allows high-needs schools and districts to meet the nutritional needs of the many low-income families they serve. As the nation struggles to recover from the economic impact of COVID-19, community eligibility offers an important opportunity for schools to respond to the increased need among their students.

This brief explores four available actions to minimize exposure to
COVID-19 through person-to-person contact when it comes to older
adults accessing food.

This letter from FRAC to the U.S. Department of Agriculture comments on the proposed rule, “Simplifying Meal Service and Monitoring Requirements in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs” 85 Fed. Reg. 16273 (March 23, 2020). The proposed rule would weaken nutrition standards, eliminate the guarantee that all children will receive a balanced and healthy school meal regardless of school setting, and diminish the nutritional value of other foods sold in the cafeteria.

Food insecurity is a social determinant of health affecting tens of millions of Americans. In response to these and other health and economic impacts, the health care sector is increasingly recognizing and investing in strategies that address and alleviate food insecurity such as screening patients for food insecurity and connecting at-risk patients to the federal nutrition programs and other food resources.

This brief provides examples of work by leading medical and health organizations to support Hunger Vital SignTM National Community of Practice members’ efforts to improve the food security of their patients at practice and policy levels — work that ultimately promotes positive health outcomes, addresses longstanding disparities in health, and reduces health care costs.

As more schools close as a result of COVID-19, a growing number of children are losing access to the school breakfasts and lunches that support their health and well-being. Advocates, school districts and out-of-school time program providers have an important role to play mitigating the impact on families who rely on free and reduced-price school meals to keep hunger at bay. School and community partners can leverage federal resources and work together to ensure access to nutritious meals during these school closures.

Here is a guide to ensuring access to the child nutrition programs
in the event of school closures.

On February 10, 2020, President Trump released his fiscal year (FY) 2021 budget proposal, which recycles many of the harmful proposals in the president’s previous budgets. In it, he proposes huge cuts to overall USDA funding and devastating cuts to SNAP and child nutrition programs. This analysis highlights areas of the budget that fund key anti-hunger and anti-poverty programs and how the proposed budget, if implemented, would harm the health and well-being of millions of people in our country.

This report looks at school breakfast participation and policies in 76 large school districts across the country to evaluate successful practices in reaching more low-income children with school breakfast. This is a companion report to the School Breakfast Scorecard.

This annual report analyzes participation in the School Breakfast Program among low-income children nationally and in each state and the District of Columbia for the 2018–2019 school year. The report features best practices for increasing participation in the program, including breakfast after the bell models and community eligibility.

This brief will review food insecurity rates and risk factors among older adults; the connections between food insecurity and health among older adults; and the effectiveness of the federal nutrition programs in alleviating food insecurity and supporting health for this population.

ResearchWire is a quarterly newsletter focused on the latest research, reports, and resources from government agencies, academic researchers, think tanks, and elsewhere on food insecurity, poverty, the federal nutrition programs, and health.

This report reviews the varying practices included in 50 school districts’ unpaid meals policies, and highlights the need for a national approach to end school meals debt.

FRAC’s report on participation data in the Afterschool Nutrition Programs measures how many children had access to afterschool suppers and snacks in October 2018, nationally and in each state. The Afterschool Supper Program served 1.3 million children on an average weekday in October 2018, an increase of 10.4 percent, or 126,393 children, from October 2017.

This report measures the reach of the Summer Nutrition Programs in July 2018, nationally and in each state. A companion piece, FRAC’s Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Summer Breakfast Status Report, focuses on summer breakfast participation.

This report measures the reach of breakfast through the Summer Nutrition Programs in July 2018, nationally and in each state. It is a companion piece to FRAC’s Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report, which focuses on summer lunch participation.

Increasing participation in the Afterschool Meal Program requires proactive planning and partnership. Developing a strong and cohesive outreach plan is an important way to increase participation, and the summer months are the perfect time to recruit afterschool sites, ensure existing sites will be returning, engage new partners, and increase awareness. Detailed below are things to consider when developing an afterschool meals outreach plan, as well as best practices shared by Florida Impact, Children’s Hunger Alliance, and the City of Seattle.