August 6, 2024
This week, the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) released Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report. The report finds that just over 2.8 million children received a lunch through the Summer Nutrition Programs on an average day in July 2023, a decrease of 170,926 children from July 2022.
The summer of 2023 marked the return to normal operations for most summer meals sites, after the end of the nationwide pandemic-era waivers. These waivers allowed summer meals sites to operate in every community, and provided operational flexiblities, including a non-congregate waiver for families to pick up meals to take home instead of children eating meals at the site.
The only remaining flexibility was non-congregate meals service in rural areas. At the same time, many summer programs still struggled with staffing shortages resulting from both staff retention and staff burnout. The end of the waivers and the additional challenges that many summer programs faced impacted access to summer meals.
Key findings from the report include:
-In July 2023, 15.3 children received a summer lunch for every 100 who received a free or reduced-price school lunch during the 2022–2023 school year.
-This gap could be a result of states adjusting to the end of pandemic-era waivers for summer meals and challenges in implementing the new rural non-congregate option.
-Participation in summer lunch in July 2023 was slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels: 30,533 additional children received a summer lunch in July 2023 compared to July 2019 (the last summer before the pandemic).
-The number of Summer Food Service Program sponsors and sites increased from July 2022 to July 2023.
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- Nationally, 4,671 sponsors (an increase of 119 sponsors from 2022) and 35,578 sites (an increase of 21 sites from 2022) participated in July 2023. The steadiness in the number of sites may be attributed to the similarity of operations in 2022 and 2023, due to the extension of the waivers being delayed until the end of June 2022, which was too late for many sponsors to take advantage of them last summer.
Moving Forward
As the first summer without the pandemic-era waiver options, summer 2023 data provides key insights into the function of the Summer Nutrition Programs and the role that they can play in supporting children and families during the summer.
In December 2022, Congress authorized the non-congregate option for rural communities and the new, permanent, Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program. As these programs roll out, it is important to continue to promote and strengthen congregate summer meals, as these sites provide a place for children to socialize and learn while receiving healthy meals — helping to counter both summer hunger and learning loss.
With summer meals participation in July 2023 falling to close to pre-pandemic levels, it is critical that strategic investments and increased efforts are made to ensure the Summer Nutrition Programs can meet their full potential. This includes adopting best practices such as leveraging summer learning funding to support programs, engaging governors and elected officials, and supporting policies that expand access to summer meals.
