As final school bells ring and students across our nation start summer break, the last thing on a parent’s mind should be how they’re going to provide nutritious meals for a child.

During the school year, USDA plays an integral role in being sure our children have enough to eat. Through the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs, USDA helps families by providing nutritious school meals to 32 million kids each day.

But when school’s out for the summer, low-income families can have trouble providing food for their children. Read more »

We think of summer time as a time when kids are free to play with their friends and enjoy time off from school. But it is during the summer months when many children report going hungry the most.  If you’re wondering how you can help prevent kids from going hungry when school is out, you should know that USDA encourages organizations to provide meals to kids through our Summer Food Service Program.

The Summer Food Service Program is a federally funded program –administered by States— that reimburses organizations for meals served to children during the summer.  Schools, churches, recreation centers, playgrounds, parks, and camps can serve meals in neighborhoods with high percentages of low-income families. These are safe and familiar locations where children naturally congregate during the summer.  Faith-based, community and private non-profit organizations can make a difference in the lives of hungry children by sponsoring a site and participating in the summer food service program. Read more »

Like a broken street light, childhood hunger impacts the well-being of the community and will only be fixed when the local community recognizes it, takes an interest, and decides to address it. When those who care come together, pool their talents, and take advantage of available resources, things start to happen. Things get fixed.

The city of Dallas is getting serious about ending childhood hunger. Just a month after the October kick-off of the No Kid Hungry Texas campaign, local leaders came together for a hunger summit in Dallas in November. The diverse line-up of speakers was inspiring! There were leaders from Congress, all levels of government, faith-based organizations, food banks, non-profit organizations and schools. Every speaker was passionate and convincing about the need and ability to end childhood hunger. Read more »

I was privileged to be part of a recent celebration in Little Rock, Arkansas. Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe hosted a press conference with Share Our Strength and the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance to announce the achievements of the first year of their state-wide campaign to end childhood hunger.

Last October when the initiative was launched, Arkansas had the highest rate of childhood hunger in the nation. The governor was appalled and decided to do something about it. The Arkansas No Kid Hungry campaign kicked off with the main strategy of increasing participation in existing federal nutrition assistance programs. Their first-year goal was to increase participation in SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, by five percent, and to increase participation in the Summer Food Service Program by 10 percent. Read more »

Looking to help USDA fight hunger and obesity? The USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has launched a new webpage just for you! The “Get Involved” webpage is full of tools your organization can use to improve outreach efforts for food help programs like SNAP, Summer Food, CACFP At-Risk Afterschool Meals, and more. When you visit our site you’ll discover how your organization, or even you as an individual, can dive into FNS outreach.

Visitors to the page are greeted by a section across the top of the page that says, “Start Here - If you are new to FNS, click here to learn how to… serve meals, get funding, end hunger, provide nutrition ed., join webinars, and much more.” This page offers information for organizations that want to get started and have done limited or no outreach with FNS in the past. It connects them with an overview of FNS food help programs, and it gets them to resources they need to start a meal or outreach program from scratch. Read more »

I didn’t know there was a museum devoted to southern food until our regional administrator, Bill Ludwig, was notified that he had been selected to receive their inaugural Humanitarian Award for Public Service. The Southern Food & Beverage Museum is appropriately located in New Orleans, where food is definitely an art form!

Southwest Regional Administrator Bill Ludwig holds the inaugural Humanitarian Award for Public Service, which was presented to him by Liz Williams, president and director of the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans, La.

When I asked museum president and director Liz Williams about the inspiration for the award, she said, “We wanted to create an award that reflects that public service and being a humanitarian can work hand in hand.  We wanted a person who had long service, who was doing good, and who was doing that good just because, and not to get recognition.  We considered others, but Bill rose to the top.” Read more »