Hunger-Free Summer
Seventeen million children struggle with hunger during the summer when they're out of school. During the school year, about 19.5 million children depend on free or reduced-price school meals to help keep them from going hungry. But only 2.2 million children receive free or reduced price meals.1
Whether the gap is 17 million kids or even half of that number, too many kids struggle with hunger during the summer months.
ConAgra Foods Foundation and Feeding America, the nation's network of food banks, are working together to create the ConAgra Foods Hunger-Free Summer program, to help close the gap and ensure all children have access to nourishing meals year round.
Half of the ConAgra Foods Foundation’s recent $10 million commitment* is dedicated to the Hunger-Free Summer program which will supplement and expand the base of existing summer feeding programs for children. A number of food banks will be selected to test pilot innovative approaches for summer feeding programs such as awareness campaigns and mobile “kids’ meals” delivery in rural areas. Feeding America will roll out best practices and lessons learned during the subsequent three-year period.
Learn more about what food bank resources are available, as well as find out how you can help ensure no child goes hungry this summer.
Summer Food Service Program Background
Proper nutrition is vital to the growth and development of children, particularly children from low-income families. As schools let out for the summer, many children lose their one opportunity during the day to have a nutritious meal.
Feeding America discovered through its Hunger in America 2010 study that 87 percent of children in households that use Feeding America’s service and who receive subsidized school meals, often go hungry during the summer months because their families are unaware of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).2 The SFSP provides children from low-income families with free, nutritious meals during the summer months, and is the single-largest federal resource available for local sponsors who want to combine a feeding program with a summer activity program.
Through our partnership with Feeding America, we hope to close the gap and help ensure that all children have access to nourishing meals year round.
1 U.S. Department of Agriculture/FNS
2 Hunger in America 2010, Feeding America
*The grant also established the ConAgra Foods Child Hunger Corps and the new ConAgra Foods Fund to Fight Child Hunger.
The Hunger Quiz
Test your knowledge. Find out how much you know about child hunger in America.
Hunger In America
Even though we may not see it, hunger lives in our classrooms, playgrounds, neighborhoods and our own backyards. It may affect our friends, our co-workers or children in our neighborhoods. Our interactive map shows where hunger lives in America.
Apply for a Grant
Want to apply for a grant from the ConAgra Foods Foundation? Learn about the application process and the criteria the ConAgra Foods Foundation uses to evaluate grant applications here.
