Resource Library

Interactive maps and tables providing state-by-state data on participation in breakfast and lunch service through the Summer Nutrition Programs.

The Summer Nutrition Programs play a critical role in closing the summer nutrition gap that exists for low-income families when the school year — and access to school breakfast and lunch — ends.

To make sure you have everything you need to show policymakers that there are too many children in your state missing out on free summer meals, FRAC has developed a communications toolkit for states.

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.

The Summer Nutrition Programs have struggled to meet the need, serving just one child summer lunch for every seven low-income children who participated in school lunch during the regular school year. They are important programs, but their reach is falling far too short of meeting the need.

The Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) demonstration pilots studied the utility of providing an electronic benefit card to low-income families to purchase food during the summer months. The evaluation found that Summer EBT reduced very low food insecurity among children by one-third. The pilot tested providing the resources through a SNAP EBT system in Connecticut, Delaware, Missouri, Oregon and Washington and a WIC EBT system in Michigan, Nevada, Texas and the Cherokee and Chickasaw Tribal Nations.

During the summer, far too many children and adolescents experience food insecurity, weight gain, and learning loss, compromising their health and ability to thrive during summer break and beyond. A key strategy to address these issues is to connect more students — especially low-income students — to high-quality summer meal and enrichment programs, which support student food security, health, and learning. This brief first summarizes important research on summertime food insecurity, weight gain, and learning loss, and then describes the value and effectiveness of the federal Summer Nutrition Programs and summer enrichment programming.

Kansas communities have come together to serve thousands more meals year after year to kids through the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). SFSP in Kansas: Replicable Strategies to Increase Summer Meals Participation highlights best practices to expand SFSP and demonstrate replicable strategies for advocates in other states.

Governors can play a critical role in establishing and strengthening statewide summer meal expansion efforts. This guide is designed to provide governors and their staff an understanding of the Summer Nutrition Programs; examples of short-term and long-term actions that states can take to connect more families to summer meal sites; and best practices for successful implementation.

Download this document which features these six steps to help engage hospitals on summer meals: 1. Check out a Hospital’s Community Needs Assessment; 2. Contact the Hospital to Discuss Summer Meals; 3. Be a Voice in the Hospital’s Planning; 4. Host a Community Forum; 5. Connect a Hospital with an existing Sponsor and/or Site;
6. Recruit Hospitals to Help with Outreach.

Hospitals across the United States are helping fill the nutrition gap during the summer by offering meals to children through the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which provides federal funding for meals and snacks served to low-income children 18 years old and younger when school is not in session. By participating in SFSP, hospitals have an opportunity to help improve child health and combat child hunger.

Every day, school nutrition departments across the country provide healthy meals to children to fuel their minds and bodies. FRAC has a variety of resources to help school districts boost participation in school breakfast and lunch and implement strong afterschool and summer nutrition programs that maximize federal child nutrition funding.

These interactive maps provide state-by-state data on participation in breakfast and lunch service through the Summer Nutrition Programs.

“The most successful summer meals sites offer educational and recreational activities that keep children engaged all summer long.”

“Serve breakfast instead of morning snack. Serve breakfast later in morning. Provide breakfast on weekends. Promote breakfast participation among sites.”