As a mother, former school board member, and Vice-Chair of the Mayors Alliance to End Childhood Hunger, it is critical to ensure that no child in our country experiences hunger while school is out.
As Mayor, you may know that summer can be the hungriest time of the year for millions of kids when school is out. Although 53% of school-aged children qualify for free or reduced-price school meals, only 1 in 7 have access to them during the summer months.
Just this year, I led an effort by more than 180 mayors nationwide to urge Congress to protect critical funding for nutrition programs, including SNAP, WIC, and the national School Lunch and School Breakfast programs. But it’s clear we can’t rely on support from the federal government. In Scranton, I worked to establish the City’s first Hunger Task Force, and we committed $10,000 from the City’s 2024 budget to the Lackawanna Food Policy Council Fund.
We can play our part in ensuring that no child goes hungry in the summertime. One of the major barriers to children participating in summer meals is a lack of awareness about the program’s existence. By shedding light on the importance of summer nutrition, we, as Mayors, can raise awareness about the summer meals in your community.
One way you can demonstrate your support is by issuing a summer meals proclamation (template available here) to highlight the importance of ending summer hunger. This proclamation can help increase awareness of existing sites, grow interest in opening new meal sites, and reinforce the importance of addressing childhood hunger. Through marketing and awareness campaigns that highlight summer meals, your office can increase participation in summer meals programs.
Meanwhile, many children still rely on free summer meals served at community sites across the country, from schools to parks and libraries. Use No Kid Hungry’s online local meal finder tool to find free meal sites near you.
Another way to combat summer hunger is to ensure that your state has opted into the Summer EBT (or SUN Bucks) program and allocated funding to support it. In many towns and communities, summer meals sponsors must be granted access to public facilities like community centers and parks.
I’d also personally encourage you to visit a summer meals site in your community and see the impact of feeding kids in the summertime, firsthand.
Learn more about the Mayors Alliance, a nonpartisan coalition representing more than 500 mayors across all 50 states and Washington, DC, from large and medium cities to smaller communities and townships, working in partnership with Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign to ensure that every child has the healthy food they need to thrive.