Summer is the time when childhood hunger takes a quantum leap. Most children are out of school and so they do not receive free or reduced school lunch and breakfast. Some 21.5 million children receive a free or reduced school meal every school day, but only about one in six school age children are served a free summer lunch or breakfast through the federal Summer Food Service Program. Numerous tests have shown that children who do not eat nutritious meals during the summer are significantly less prepared for school in September. Everyone agrees that nutrition aids comprehension. Teachers will tell you that hungry children are not usually the best learners.
Each summer there are almost 60,000 sites all across the country where children can receive a free, healthy lunch and breakfast: beaches, parks, summer camps, summer schools, swimming pools and religious programs. That number grows every year. The organization that I work with, WhyHunger, has a toll-free number (1-800-5-HUNGRY), texting service and online database where people can get a free meal in their neighborhood for their children. They simply give us their zip code and we connect them to a meal site for their children. Because of this database and the wonderful work of several national non-profit anti- hunger organizations and thousands of local schools and other summer programs for kids, there were almost 3.2 million children who received summer meals in 2014. But that is only about 15% of the eligible kids. What about the millions of children who were not reached by the program? How can they be included?
Several years ago we at WhyHunger worked with the USDA to develop a solution. Add $45 to $60 a month onto the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) EBT card that used to be called Food Stamps during the weeks when children are out of school in the summer. The USDA-Food and Nutrition Service tried this as a pilot program in 14 states in 18 sites for four summers. The results were positive. The program reduced hunger among these children by more than 33 percent.
There are several advantages to the SNAP distribution. Because almost 90 percent of children eat at home during the summer, transportation is not a problem as it is with many rural summer meals sites. There are no safety issues that can be obstacles for participation and no need for extra supervisors.
The pilot was so successful that President Obama invested $12 BILLION into the program over the next ten years. It was a major step towards his goal of eliminating childhood hunger in America. But what happens now? There were three bills in the Senate last year to implement this new method of feeding hungry children during the summer but none of them have made it into the Senate for this session so far. Will any of the senators try again this year and if they did would any of them be funded at all in the new Trump budget? I have talked to staff from several senate offices, all of whom are pledged to try to move Summer Meals forward in this session but from what we have seen in the initial budget statement, there seems to be no chance. In fact, it is just the opposite, severe cuts to virtually all programs that benefit poor and hungry people, starting with a 29 percent cut in SNAP over 10 years.
So, instead of spending money to feed hungry children during the summer through a program that has proven to be successful, the money will be spent to give super millionaires a tax cut, to inflate an already bloated military budget and build a boondogle wall on the Mexican border. Guns and walls and needless tax cuts replace food for hungry people and programs to help people out of poverty. Will people of conscience in both the Democratic and Republican parties give in to this immoral budget or stand up for what the vast majority of Americans support, helping the most vulnerable folks in our society: children, the elderly, the sick and addicted, single parents, the mentally ill and the tens of millions of hard working Americans who still live in poverty? Feeding hungry children during the summer should be right at the top of our priorities if we are truly a nation that loves our children. The only way it can happen is with grassroots support from concerned citizens. Please let your voice be heard for hungry children.