Home » Opinion — Tamara Sandberg: Summer can be stressful for low-income families

Opinion — Tamara Sandberg: Summer can be stressful for low-income families

New program options needed to close summer hunger gap

(July 28, 2015) — For many kids, summertime means food, friends and fun. For families who count on school breakfast and lunch, however, the summer months can be stressful as family food budgets are stretched even further.

Tamara Sandberg
Tamara Sandberg

Many families also face the challenge of providing safe, supervised and affordable places for kids and teens to socialize, play and continue to learn during the summer. Studies show that students typically lose several months of learning during the summer in mathematics; low-income students tend to fall behind in reading.

Thanks to the Summer Food Service Program, this does not have to be the case. Kentucky children are able to attend during the summer one of the more than 1,000 sites across the state that provide almost 2 million breakfasts, lunches and snacks—along with learning and recreational activities—to Kentucky children.

The program was created in 1975 to help children facing hunger get the healthy food they need during the summer months. Funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, the program is administered by the Kentucky Department of Education and held at local organizations like schools, churches and food banks.

However, too many kids in Kentucky are not getting the food they need during the summer months when school is out. The Food Research and Action Center’s report “Hunger Doesn’t Take A Vacation” found that only one in 13 low-income children in Kentucky who needs summer meals is receiving them.

The members of the Kentucky Association of Food Banks and other charities are doing our part to try to close the summer hunger gap by operating summer feeding programs in our communities. But there is no way we will be able to feed the kids not being served without greater flexibility in how we reach kids in the summer. All too often, hungry kids lack access to food simply because they cannot get to a program site.

Congress has a unique opportunity to close the summer hunger gap when they rewrite child nutrition programs this year. There needs to be more flexibility in program operation and a streamlining of requirements for providers that operate both after school and summer meal programs. We encourage Congress to pass a strong child nutrition bill that provides more options to get food to kids.

Summertime should be a stress-free time for parents and kids, full of food, friends and fun. It’s time to update the way we feed kids in the summertime.

Kentucky families can find nearby summer meal sites by visiting fns.usda.gov/summerfoodrocks or by calling the National Hunger Hotline at 1-866-3HUNGRY (1-866-348-6479).

Tamara Sandberg is the executive director of the Kentucky Association of Food Banks.