Food Program Website
July 14, 1999
Many Utah students who eat free breakfasts and lunches during the school
year may not be receiving nutrious meals during the summer break.
And that worries eduactors.
So they've developed a program for those children.
Ruth Todd explains what it is -- and who qualifies for it,
in today's Family Now report.
During the school year, thousands of Utah children who might otherwise go
hungry eat nutritious meals at school breakfast and lunch programs.
But what happens in the summer?
Are they getting enough to eat?
Some kids are.
Each Friday, 220 kids in the neighborhood around West Valley City's
Hillsdale Park eat a balanced and free meal of pizza, milk, and fruit.
And they aren't the only children who are benefitting both nutritionally
and financially during the summer.
It's a daily occurrence in 22 of Utah's 40 school districts - part of a
federal program to provide breakfast and lunch to kids up to age 18, called the
Summer Food Service Program.
Hank Winawer, the assistant director of the State Child Nutrition Program,
says, "The program was set up back in 1968 to kind of pick up where the
traditional school lunch left off - because after the traditional school year
was over around Memorial Day - the needy children were still hungry."
If more than half of the kids who attend a school fall in the low income and
lower middle income brackets, the school qualifies for the program.
Last summer, more than 20,000 Utah kids ate more than 900,000 lunches and
breakfasts.
And the program is completely anonymous. Any child, up to age 18,
regardless of income, can eat the lunches.
No distinction is made between who's needy and who's not needy.
It's available to all kids - whether they are low, middle or even high income.
Winawer explains, "Just because a child comes from a middle or upper income
family does not necessarily mean that child is well nourished, either. They may
have money to buy food, but they may be buying junk and getting empty calorie
foods."
The meals are nutritionally similar to food served the rest of the year and
are typically part of a summer program for kids.
For more information about the summer food service program, call the Family Now
information line at 1-800-575-5751.
