Hannah Traverse
Editorial Intern
When school lets out, the last thing a kid wants to do is sit inside. Running through sprinklers and climbing on monkey bars might seem like the perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon, but what if you are a child whose family has bare cupboards in the kitchen? A kid who relies on free school lunches?
Each school day, the National School Lunch Program provides free or reduced-price meals to more than 30,000 students in the D.C. Public Schools. Fortunately, the D.C. Free Summer Meals Program allows these children, who comprise some 70 percent of all DCPS students, to still receive daily, nutritious meals even when schools are out.
For the past 7 years, the District has led the nation in providing free summer meals to low-income children through the federal Summer Nutrition Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to the Food Research and Action Center, more than 28,000 children participated in the D.C. Free Summer Meals Program in July 2010. This means that about 80 percent of children that received free or reduced-price meals during the school year also received free summer meals. Nationwide, only about 15 percent of children who received meals in the 2009–2010 school year also received summer meals.
“In some areas, there just hasn’t been enough of a priority put on running these programs,” said Alex Ashbrook, director of D.C. Hunger Solutions, a District-specific organization founded by FRAC. “Across the country we’re seeing cuts in camp programs, schools closing. This is going to affect the program.”

Lunchtime at Emery Recreation Center this summer is provided thanks to the DC Free Summer Meals Program, funded by the federal Summer Nutrition Program. Lunches like this fill the void for students who usually recieve free or discounted lunch at school during the summer months spent out of school.

While budget cuts may leave many states struggling to find sites to host summer meal programs, the District had a plentiful 270 sites in July 2009 and 317 sites in July 2010. A similar number of sites are operating for 2011. Many entire states, including Arizona, Mississippi and Colorado, do not have as many meal sites as the District.
D.C. meal sites include schools, recreation centers, libraries, churches and Boys and Girls Club locations. Unless a camp program is involved, children do not need to be registered at a specific site to be served; any eligible child 18 and under who drops by a site at the designated mealtime is fed.
To notify families about the summer meals program, D.C. Hunger Solutions produces posters and other marketing materials, as well as public service announcements for both TV and radio. This year, the organization also launched a service that allows families to simply text 202-6565-EAT for information on where to find the closest meal site.
“If we don’t make a concerted effort, the educational achievement gap widens, the hunger gap widens and we’re really doing a disservice to the community,” said Ashbrook, commenting on the importance of making sure lower income children do not fall through the cracks during the summer.
“Summertime, unfortunately, in our country, is the time in the year in which children…are at the highest risk of going hungry,” said Kevin Concannon, USDA Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, in a conference call. “We know as a country we have the capacity to end hunger. We need systems as well as the will to do so.”
The District’s system of providing free summer meals depends heavily on the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation. This summer, the DPR is operating about 200 meal sites, making it by far the largest sponsor of the D.C. Free Summer Meals Program. Among these 200 locations are about 60 “affiliated sites,” which includes recreation centers and camps run directly by the Department. Many of the remaining sites are small operations, such as vacation bible camps, that only provide meals for a week or two. The DPR visits these sites to determine their suitability and then provides operational and food safety training before any meals are distributed.
According to Ashbrook, much of the food circulated in the D.C. Free Summer Meals Program comes from the D.C. Central Kitchen. Food from the 45 meal sites run by the DCPS may also come from such DCPS food vendors as Revolution Foods and Chartwells.
This school year, DCPS set new standards for its meal program, inspiring changes in how summer meal programs are run. Meals made to DCPS standards are free of high-fructose corn syrup and artificial trans fat, are never fried and are served with only hormone- and antibiotic-free skim or one percent milk.
“Parents have been very supportive,” said Jeff Mills, director of DCPS Food Services. “There was a little pushback in the beginning…. The menus changed 180 degrees, so some of the foods were very new to many students.”
The summer menu at DCPS meal sites is no different than the school year menu. Kids served at these sites may receive baked tilapia, broccoli and cheddar brown rice pilaf and spinach lasagna. Most meals come with a fresh piece of fruit.
The DPR also recently revamped its menu to ensure students are receiving more nutritious food. Mark McCain, director of the DPR Summer Feeding Program, said that while in previous years kids may have received sandwiches and potato chips for lunch, now they are served wraps and chicken Caesar salad.
“We’re dealing with younger kids who’ve never had a salad before. They’ve had tomatoes and they’ve had lettuce; they’ve just never mixed them together and put Parmesan cheese on top,” said McCain. “We really tried to create an environment in which the kids can take something home…maybe ask their parents to buy the right ingredients to make some of the food they eat during the day…. We’re happy to introduce them to another way of eating.”