Ground Zero

Across the country the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is getting some much-needed attention. Anna Quindlen said it best in a June 18, 2001 column in Newsweek, "Summer is ground zero in the battle to keep kids fed."

The Bush Administration is serious about summer food. Last fall Eric Bost, Undersecretary for the Food and Nutrition Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), directed states to push the program. Children shouldn't miss meals in summer just because school lunch disappears.

On January 31st Hunger Action hosted a Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) meeting of existing sponsors to identify barriers to Program expansion.

Chris Martin, Regional Administrator for the USDA Mid-Atlantic Region, articulated the USDA commitment to SFSP: "We're looking for more children, more meals at existing sites, lengthening the weeks that the sites are in operation, more sites and more sponsors." The USDA is committed to growing the program by 7 per cent this summer. Martin pledged the resources of his office to make its easier for sponsors . "The Program is up for reauthorization in the upcoming year, so there are also opportunities to address statutory issues in the near future.

Pat Birkenshaw, Director of Child Nutrition Programs for the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), alluded to the extensive research documenting the link between school breakfast and good educational outcomes. "The bottom line is when children eat breakfast, they perform better on standardized tests, have lower rates of tardiness and absenteeism, have fewer behavior problems and in general, feel better about their schools....We would like to see the same type of research conducted on summer feeding....Sometimes science is the best marketing tool we have."

Meeting participants expressed a passionate commitment to offering summer meals. Awilda Lopez of the Lancaster Recreation Commission said her organization does summer meals because "if we don't do it the kids might not get a lunch during summer."

Marlene Kozak, Director of the Westmoreland County Food Bank, said "Our mission is to end hunger in Westmoreland County. Feeding children during the summer seems like a natural extension of this. Keeping them well nourished helps them to go back to school ready to learn."

The meeting also touched on some concerns with the operation of the SFSP. Existing sponsors, including school food authorities, food banks, private non-profits, and religious organizations, highlighted the difficulties they have experienced:

Sponsors also listed areas where they could give their own programs a boost. Marshon Fisher of Pittsburgh Parks and Recreation spoke of the need for better local marketing. Joanne Kinsey of the Allentown School District felt that her flexibility as a sponsor could be improved with better refrigeration and hot-food storage capacity at site locations. Pat Temple-West of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia would like to introduce incentives for meal sites to operate additional weeks during the summer. Awilda Lopez of the Lancaster Recreation Commission noted the need to introduce more "ethnic diversity" in the menu. Several sponsors articulated a need for additional trucks for rural delivery. Because many sites are in pavilions or park-type settings, a number remarked on the difficulty of planning meals for the correct number of children on low-attendance days due to bad weather.

Many who attended the meeting left with a resolve to do more. Both USDA and PDE staff articulated a commitment to make SFSP work better for hungry children in Pennsylvania by taking the concerns of the sponsors back to their agencies. Hunger Action plans to continue the discussion with SFSP sponsors in regular forums.

With many of our national resources newly focused on an external enemy, we must also direct resources to overcome internal threats as well. Hunger is such a threat. Growing the Summer Food Service Program is one way we can fight hunger here in Pennsylvania.

For more information about the SFSP, contact Vince Matasheski at 1-800-331-0129.