It will be a hungry summer for low-income kids on vacation from school lunch programs

[marmar]

from The Nation:


comment | posted June 7, 2007 (June 25, 2007 issue)
Summer Lunch Crunch
Herman Schwartz


Summer is here, and school will be out for more than two months. For many low-income families, that's bad news. Not only do their kids have little or nothing to do, but it can be an especially hungry time for them. Approximately 16 million children receive free or reduced-price meals during the school year from the National School Lunch Program, but only a shamefully small fraction of them receive a free lunch or breakfast during the summer either from a summer extension of the NSLP or through the separate Summer Food Service Program.

Started in 1968 primarily as a way to move children into summer activities, the summer food program has never fed more than a small proportion of the children who needed meals. In recent years, the number of children in the programs has averaged fewer than 3 million, less than 20 percent of the number who receive federally funded lunches during the school year; almost half the states--including Texas, Florida, Michigan and Ohio--scored less than 15 percent in the summer of 2005. Since all children who show up for the activities are fed, regardless of whether they need the free meals, the number of low-income children served during the summer may well be fewer than even these dismal percentages. Moreover, most of these programs operate for only part of the summer, so the number of free meals actually served is probably less than a tenth of what would be provided were the summer service to reach all the children covered by the school-year program for the full vacation.

Even more troubling is that the number of children receiving lunch during the summer has steadily gone down in recent years, dropping to 2.8 million in 2005 from a high of 3.1 million in 2000, even though the number of needy children has gone up by 1.3 million during those years, as poverty levels have risen. A recent report by the US Conference of Mayors found that in the twenty-three cities surveyed, requests for food assistance by families with children increased by an average of 5 percent in 2006.

The current summer food programs are not likely to do much better. Under the Summer Food Service Program, which is the main one, the Agriculture Department reimburses qualified sponsors--school systems, recreational programs and other public or nonprofit organizations--for meals served at sites chosen to maximize access to low-income children. It appears, however, that many, if not most, poor parents don't know these programs exist, and even when they do, they often find it hard to get the children to them. Also, finding sponsors and sites is difficult because the reimbursement rates for the food are inadequate (they were cut in 1996 as part of the assault on welfare), the qualification criteria are strict and the administrative requirements cumbersome. Finding volunteers to staff the sites is not easy either, especially in poor neighborhoods, where many people are working two or three jobs just to get by.

A more rational summer food program would not depend on getting the children to the food but on getting the food to the children. Not directly, which could raise complicated distribution problems, but in the same way food is provided today through the food stamps program: by making electronic benefit cards available to all children eligible for the National School Lunch Program, for use by their parents at participating food outlets. This would eliminate the parent-awareness problem, the search for sponsors and sites, the elaborate red tape and the reimbursement inadequacy. Summer school and other activities would continue, but the sites where only food is provided could be abandoned. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070625/schwartz

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[Dhalgren]

2. K&R! This needs attention that it won't get.

Care and concern for the poor is so 20th century. It is what the old Republic would have been concerned about. In today's new Reich, we have more pressing issues to be concerned about...

[tandot]

3. Too bad "pro-lifers" will be busy saving blastocysts and forcing women to give birth

against their will or their doctor's recommendations.

They are unlike to give a sh*t about already born children who are starving or children who are bombed to bits and pieces in an unjust war.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread marmar.

[bedpanartist]

5. Little or nothing to do?

I grew up poor, and I can't remember ever having "nothing to do" as long as there was a nerf football or Wiffle ball set around.

Or, there was the play all day in the creek catching crawdads free fun.

Often times when you are poor, there are MORE things to do because your imagination hasn't been hindered by market capitalism that tells kids that if they are not watching a video or playing on the X-Box, then there is "nothing to do."

[knitter4democracy]

6. I helped out with a meal for kids in inner city Cleveland once.

The kids came out in droves--all for a juicebox, a hot dog, and a bag of chips. We had just a little left over, and we had to hide that fact, or there would've been chaos. The kids were so skinny and so hungry, and it still breaks my heart.

Rural poverty is really bad, and there's no infrastructure to get the food to the kids other than the school. With no busing, how are the kids supposed to get there? Food banks are saying that they're seeing more than ever, and so many of those recipients are children. There has to be a better way.