As we prepare for summer and fun in the sun, many children from low-income communities do not have access to the same meals they receive during the school year. According to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), only one in six low income children who rely on meals during the school year receive meals in the summer through the USDA Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).

Last year with support from the Walmart Foundation, NRPA helped local park and recreation agencies in 80 cities serve over 20 million meals to children during the summer and before/after school in low-income communities. While we celebrate this accomplishment, we know more work needs to be done to close the hunger gap.

If your agency serves children during the summer or before/after school and is not currently participating in the USDA meal programs, here’s how you can start or join an existing program in your community. 

How Does the Summer Meals Program Work?

Purpose: To serve free, healthy meals to low-income children and teens during summer months when school is out.

Where: Any safe place for kids (for example: school, park, rec center, library, faith organization, etc.) can be a summer meal site.

Who: Summer meal sites receive meals from local sponsoring organizations (for example: local park and recreation agency, Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, local school district, etc.). Sponsors prepare the food (or order it), deliver it to the meal site, and are reimbursed by USDA for the costs.

Eligibility: Any meal site open to the public (a public pool or public park) is eligible if it is in a school district where 50 percent or more children qualify for free and reduced-priced school meals. If it is not open to the public (for example: a summer camp), 50 percent of more of the enrolled students must qualify for free and reduced-priced school meals.

How Do I Become A Site or Sponsor?

Contact the State Agency that operates the program for your state. They will provide information about the eligibility of your area and local sponsors that serve meals to sites.

We encourage you to learn if sites are already nearby in your community before starting a new one. Through community outreach and promotion of the program, you can increase the number of children participating in sites that already exist.  

Learn about sites that may have been in your community last summer, and nearby organizations that can work with sites through USDA's Summer Meals Capacity Builder. It is updated with 2016 meal sites.

Parks and recreation play an important part of a community’s health and wellness – from providing safe and fun activities during the summer months, to ensuring children receive healthy meals. You can add to this great work by starting or helping with summer meals sites in your area!

Already have a successful summer meals site in your community? Share your success with us on Twitter or Instagram using #SummerMeals and #CommitToHealth! 

Learn more about Commit to Health!

Kellie May is NRPA's Senior Program Manager.