WALLINGFORD, Conn — For some students, the school serves as a main source of meals for the day, which means the end of the school year could come with uncertainty and worry. It's a time of the year when food security organizations see a big rise in need.
"The summer is the hardest time of the year for what we do, and a lot of people don't think about it that way. They think about us at Thanksgiving time. They think about us at the end of the year, holidays, but the truth is, the summertime is the hardest time for us and our pantries out there, mostly driven by the fact that you've got kids of out school," said Jason Jakubowski, President & CEO of Connecticut Foodshare.
"There's a lot of kids here in the State of Connecticut that get one, sometimes two, sometimes three meals a day from their local public school, and once school is out, it's a lot harder to have access to those meals."
Enter the CT Summer Meals Program. The program is federally funded by the USDA and state-administered by the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE). The program provides free, nutritious meals to kids during summer break. Summer Meals meet federal nutrition guidelines and are composed of milk, fruits, vegetables, grains, and meat or another protein.
Summer Meals are offered at hundreds of sites around the state from June to late August, serving combinations of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Meals are free to any child age 18 and under, no questions asked.
"In the State of Connecticut, 1 in 10 residents is considered food insecure, meaning they do not have consistent access to a sufficient amount of nutritious foods and for children, that's 1 in 9," said Aubrey Roscoe, Connecticut Foodshare Director of the Institute for Hunger Research & Solutions.
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This summer, Connecticut Foodshare is working to make Summer Meals more accessible for families through mobile pantries.
"The Summer Meals program is all over Connecticut, but this pilot program is going to bring the Summer Meals Program to some of our mobile pantry sites and some of our partner agencies, so where people are coming to get food, their kids can also get a meal," said Sarah Santora, Connecticut Foodshare Director of Community Programs.
More information and locations can be found here and here.
Angelo Bavaro is an anchor and reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at abavaro@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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