Poverty Rising, Schools Increase Free Summer Meals Program

Rising poverty has led to a substantial increase in the number of schools participating in free summer meal programs for school-age kids.

The Summer Food Service Program is a federal program that reimburses school districts and community organizations for free meals that are served to kids in low income areas.

Amy Kolano is the statewide coordinator for the Department of Public Instruction.

Kolano: “During the school year, many of the school-age children have access to nutritious meals through the national school lunch and school breakfast program. When the regular school year ends, they have lost that resource.”

Kolano says the summer program fills that void, and it has grown significantly over the last five years as more schools and organizations become eligible.

Kolano: “Last year was probably our largest that we’ve had yet. We had 177 sponsors or agencies providing free meals to children [around] the state at over 700 different locations.”

To participate, an individual school has to have 50 percent or more of its students qualify for free and reduced lunches. Mary Loveless is the food service director in Baraboo. She says right now three of Baraboo’s public schools qualify to serve summer meals, and she anticipates that number will rise.

Loveless: “District wide, we’re up to about 45 percent free and reduced [lunches] at this point. We seem to climb a little every year. Eventually, if we get to be 50 percent, as a district we can be anywhere we want to be.”

According to DPI, last summer over 2.3 million meals were served to kids in Wisconsin through the program. That’s up 40 percent from five years ago.