TOPEKA, Kan. – Representatives from Kansas school districts, nonprofits, faith-based organizations and local government entities from communities are invited to attend the Central and South Central Kansas Summer Meals Summit, hosted by Kansas Appleseed, the Kansas State Department of Education and the Kansas Health Foundation on Thursday, Nov. 5, in Hutchinson. Participants will learn about the successes of the 2015 Summer Food Service Program and discuss ways to reach more children in 2016.
For children of low-income families who receive free and reduced price lunches during the school year, The Summer Food Service Program helps fill the nutrition gap for these children during the summer months when school is not in session. It provides no-cost meals to children ages 1 to 18 at schools, parks, libraries, churches, swimming pools and other places children gather in the summer.
In 2014, for every 100 Kansas children who ate free or reduced-price lunches during the school year, only seven children received lunch through the Summer Food Service Program. According to a recent report published by the Food Research and Action Center, Kansas ranked 50th among the states and the District of Columbia in the number of meals served by the Summer Food Service Program. The Summer Meals Summit will focus on increasing the number of meal sites in order to close the gap on underserved children in Kansas.
According to Rebekah Gaston, Director of the Childhood Hunger Initiative at the Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a statewide public interest advocacy organization, in 2014, 44 of the 105 counties in Kansas did not have a single Summer Food Service Program site, but progress is being made.
“In 2015, we were down to 35 counties without a site,” said Gaston. “That’s a significant improvement in one year, but with one-third of Kansas counties still having no sites, we have a long way to go. We are urging Kansas residents in every city and county to step up and work together to create more programs and feed more kids in their respective communities. We should all hold ourselves accountable when Kansas kids are not getting the nutrition they need.”
Registration information is available online at www.kansaskidstable.org.
All summits will begin at 9:00 a.m. and end at 4:00 p.m., with lunch provided to all registered attendees. Please contact Jacqueline Green at jgreen@kansasappleseed.org or 316-640-7320 if you have any questions.