Summer Meals Program Provides Economic Relief for Rural Families Facing Financial Hardship Due to Loss of Free and Reduced Priced School Meals
When schools close their doors for the summer break, many kids find themselves without access to the reliable nutrition provided by school meals. The 1 in 5 kids in Georgia who experience food insecurity often face the hungriest season of the year during the summer months. No Kid Hungry Georgia is working to change that by providing a total of $244,616 in grants to thirteen organizations across the state to help reach more kids in rural communities with summer meals.
The following school districts and community organizations received summer meal grants from No Kid Hungry Georgia:
- Appling County
- BOLD Ministries
- Brantley County
- Cartersville City School District
- Hall County School Nutrition
- Heard County Schools
- John W. Williams Corporation
- Newton County Schools
- Polk School District
- Richmond County School System
- The Black Lotus Project Inc.
- Turner County School District
- YMCA of Rome and Floyd County
Rural communities face particular challenges when it comes to accessing summer meal programs. Transportation issues, work schedules, extreme weather–all can pose significant hardship to families when it comes to connecting kids to summer meals. Traditional summer meal programs have only reached a fraction of kids in rural communities, but non-congregate summer meal flexibilities have been a game changer in recent years. No Kid Hungry’s grant funding supports summer meal programs that make meals more accessible for rural families by delivering meals to children who need them or allowing parents to pick meals up at a central location to be taken home for their kids, often for multiple days at a time.
“The tremendous growth in summer meal programs across the state since the non-congregate option became available shows that Georgia families have embraced its flexibility. As a result, summer meals are reaching more Georgia kids than ever before,” says Kate Goodin, senior manager of No Kid Hungry Georgia.
For help finding a Summer Meal site, visit NoKidHungry.org/Help or /Ayuda. The program is available to all children 18 years and under.
Check out our spotlight on Banks County to learn more on just how impactful summer non-congregate is for communities across Georgia.
If you’re thinking about operating a summer program next year, check out our summer meals resource roundup to learn more.
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About No Kid Hungry
No child should go hungry in America. But millions of kids in the United States live with hunger. No Kid Hungry is working to end childhood hunger by helping launch and improve programs that give all kids the healthy food they need to thrive. This is a problem we know how to solve. No Kid Hungry is a campaign of Share Our Strength, an organization committed to ending hunger and poverty. Join us at NoKidHungry.org.
