Many families are currently living in poverty. They cannot even afford some of the basic necessities of life. Public schools already prove to be a great aid because they are free to those living in the designated area. However, low-income families may struggle with providing all three meals to their children. During the school year, many schools provide free breakfast and lunch to those who qualify. Yet schools isn’t in session all year long. The Summer Food Service Program provides free or reduced-price meals to children under the age of 18 in low-income families. These programs are crucial because they ensure that children maintain a nutritious diet throughout the summer.
The Summer Food Service Program is a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Child Program. SFPS was first created in 1968. It became a separate organization in 1975. More than 2.28 million students are enrolled in these programs in over 39,000 sites. Programs operate in areas where at least half the children come from families with an income at or below 185% of the Federal poverty line. Federal poverty lines or levels determine in one is eligible for financial assistance. To qualify for free meals, family income has to be below 130% of the Federal poverty line. However, to qualify for reduced-price meals, family incomes have to be between 130% and 185% of the Federal poverty line. Children typically receive two meals a day, but programs centered around migrants give out three meals a day. SFPS is incredibly needed that, as of 2012, Congress designated $398 million to the cause.
A state, county, or even community can do their part by creating and finding available sites and sponsors. Sponsors are “organizations that manage SFSP feedings sites” (USDA). Sites ar...
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...n Illinois.” USDA. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2014. .
“Frequently Asked Questions.” USDA. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2014. .
“How to Become a Sponser.” USDA. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2014. .
“Summer Food Service Program.” Feeding America. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2014. .
“Summer Food Service Program.” USDA. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2014. .
“Summer Nutrition Programs.” Food Research and Action Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2014. .
According to Dolgoff and Feldstein (2003), “the needs and goals of the Food Stamp Program are to alleviate hunger and malnutrition by enabling low-income households to buy a nutritious adequate diet” (p. 132). The program also improved the market for local merchants to produce food for eligible low-income households and other agencies such as the School Lunch Program which safeguard the health and wel...
According to the “Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet” on Feeding America’s website, in 2014 there were over 48 million Americans living in food insecure households, which included 15 million children. During the school year, these children rely on free or reduce breakfast and lunch. When the summer vacation months arrive, these children loose the security of these meals. Feeding America, working alongside the United States Department of Agriculture, provide free summer meals to these children. Unfortunately, not all children and families are aware that these programs are taking place; therefore missing out on a vital resource to help stretch their food dollars throughout the summer
The Indiana School Breakfast and Lunch Program is a program open to those children who live in a low income household. “National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a Federal entitlement program open to public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. Lunch is available to all children at participating schools, and the meals must meet specific nutritional requirements to receive Federal funds (Indiana Department of Education, 2013). This Program is open to those who reside in Indiana and who are a parent or guardian of a child who in school, and does not continue beyond high school. This program has requirements that deal with the level of household income. The household income requirements deal with the household income before taxes have been taken out. If there is a household of one person, they cannot make more than $21,257; a person in a two person household cannot make more than $28,694. This scale continues all the way to that a household of eight cannot make more than $73,316 (Indiana Department of Education, 2013).
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (S.N.A.P.) is a federal program founded in 1964, with the purpose of reducing hunger and malnutrition in the United States. Low-income families and individuals that qualify for this federal assistance can buy food every month in the form of an electronic benefit transfer (EBT). These EBT cards are similar to debit card; cardholder’s recipient can use their cash benefits or buy eligible food at most stores and retailers. Over the years S.N.A.P expenses have dramatically increase. S.N.A.P needs reform due to the never-ending of the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Rosenbaum, D. & Neuberger, Z. (2005, August 17). Food and nutrition programs: Reducing hunger and bolstering nutrition. Retrieved from http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=510
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
"School Meals Need to Get Healthier: Report." Healthday. 29 OCT 2009: n. page. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years,” meaning that America’s children need to start eating healthier, including healthier school lunches. The National School Lunch Act is a fairly recent addition to American society. For, as the world waged war a second time, the United States began to worry about the strength and health of the country’s soldiers. However, in the beginning, selling excess agricultural goods was more important than building a healthy, well-balanced meal for students. Unfortunately, many children coming from poorer families could not afford well-balanced school lunches, so in order to compensate, the School Lunch Program changed its focus to help these students. This program, however, decreased schools’ lunch budgets, and schools had a hard time keeping up with the amount of free meals they had to provide, so they came up with some extra ways to increase revenue. However, in a small town in Massachusetts, one chef makes a difference in the health of the school lunch students eat each day, and proves that hiring a trained chef to cook real, healthy meals can increase profit. Unfortunately, that is not the case in most schools across the nation. The quality of health of the food being served in school lunches is extremely poor and was allowed to decline even more with a new set of rule changes. However, there are some improvements currently being made to increase the quality of health of the food being served to students, including teaching them all about food and its nutritional information, both good and bad. In order for students to eat healthier lunches at school, the USDA needs to implement healthier ...
By law, however, the NSLP cannot charge more than $.40 cents per reduced lunch. In addition, the 2004-2005 SNDA III also reveal that students coming from low income families and between the ages of 8 to 10 participate at a higher level rate than students coming from high income households and between the ages of 10 to 18. Finally, the SNDA also show that 77.6% of the students assisted come from food secure households compare to 16.6% of participants coming from low food insecure homes and 5.7% coming from very food insecure homes (Ralston et al. pg. 10, 2008). This is ironic because the NSLP should target students suffering from high levels of food insecurity as opposed to food secure
Active teens require 2000-5000 calories a day(Kids Health). The healthy choices may be available but, are kids really eating the food? According to the statistics on waste, the answer to this question is”No”. The Healthy Kids Hunger-Free Act originated in 2010, new updated guidelines implemented in 2012 include the following: increase amounts of fruits and vegetables, calorie limits according to age group, reduction in fats and sodium. All schools were required to implement the changes in 2012-2013. One of the changes implemented because of the enormous amount of waste was “offer versus serve”. In the updated guidelines, this was another requirement. The term “offer versus serve” was coined to reduce waste: students can decline some of the food offered that they do not intend to eat (USDA Food and Nutrition Service n.p.). This confirms the fact that students were not eating the healthy choices that were being served. As a result the calorie intake for a student was now a health risk since they are not getting enough to support their growing bodies. Another point to be seen with the caloric guidelines and putting a cap on the caloric intake of a child is that these figures do not consider and athlete; who needs double or triple the caloric intake to support 2 hours of training in the morning and 2-3 hours after school, or the
Imagine that you walk into a cafeteria and you see children in line to buy lunch. The lunch is burnt and cold. You see the kids who bought lunch sit down and start asking people for food, they say no. At the end of the lunch period the kids lunch trays still have all the food on them. The children are starving and a lot of food was wasted. You don’t want that right? I believe that our school should get a new lunch menu because many students do not like the food served, there are not many options, and there are many problems with the food.
In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.
A big step in the process to get rid of child hunger was the passing of the Improving Child Nutrition Integrity and Access Act of 2016 by the Senate Agriculture Committee. This bill allows children to have access to food during the summer along with allowing states to give summer EBTs to a limited number of children. Although it does not seem like much, summer time lasts three full months. When I was in grade school, I remember a kid telling me that he only eats at school. I found that hard to believe given that I grew up in a family where we were not concerned with putting food on the table. I can’t imagine what that kid felt when school got out and he had to worry about where his next meal was coming from. I always assumed food was not a problem in our nation because of the many charities and food drives. I was shocked when I read in an article by Bread, that only one out of every 20 grocery bags that feed the hungry come from charities or churches. Obviously we are not doing enough since nearly 16 million children are still uncertain where their next meal is coming
In the United States of America, the richest nation of the world, one in six Americans do not have enough food to eat. Have you ever wonder why there are so many food banks and food pantries throughout the country? They are not simply, as you thought, existent to offer emergency food assistance. Indeed, they are the main sources of food to millions of food-insecure Americans. Food insecurity, the state of not having sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food, has been very widespread and common in America. It affected millions of Americans and has been increasing dramatically in recent years; in 2012, more than 48 millions of food-insecure Americans rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (McMillan). The depth
For some, the thought of their next meal is unquestionable, but for others, it is a matter of "if" or "when". The lack of adequate and nutritious food is the reality for many. In the summer of 2015, the Columbus Municipal and Starkville-Oktibbeha school districts took part in a national summer feeding program for impoverished students in the area. According to Philip Hickam, the Superintendent of the Columbus Municipal School District, approximately 4,000 meals were served weekly. The feeding program was praised very highly by participating administrators. Paula Baker, the Columbus High School Site Manager commented that "It's going well," while a parent whose children attended the feeding program mentioned that "it helps a lot with being able to stretch groceries." This feeding program is one of the few that offer free summer meals out of the 777 sites located in the state of Mississippi. Based on my past experiences of attending a summer feeding program, this article truly has ignited my passion to one day contribute to my community with positive attributions that could possibly someday eradicate child hunger.