Tobin: Support summer feeding program

While many young people are enjoying the sun this summer, more than 250,000 are at risk of hunger. When school’s out for the summer, low-income students and their families face the challenge of making their limited food dollars go even further.

South Carolina’s summer nutrition programs provide much-needed assistance for low-income children and their families over the summer, when free or reduced-price lunches at school are less available. They fed more than 67,000 children last summer.

Still, the participation rate is too low — only 20 percent of the school lunch program, according to the Food Research and Action Council. Put another way, for every five students getting a free or reduced-price lunch during the school year, only one received a meal during the summer.

A 2014 University of South Carolina study by Carrie Draper and Sonya Jones found that participation was low because people were unaware of the program. Beyond knowledge, transportation is one of the key barriers to students’ participation and is especially burdensome in rural areas.

One way to increase participation is to increase the number of locations and sponsoring organizations. Unfortunately, the administrative burden of the program can present considerable challenges for organizations. Let’s not allow paperwork to get in the way of hungry kids getting the food they qualify for this summer.

For low-income kids, even brief periods of food insecurity or hunger can have physical and academic consequences. We can help our state’s low-income families get free food this summer and ward off the risk of hunger.

To find out more about summer nutrition programs, contact summerfood @ed.sc.gov or call the National Hunger Hotline at 1-866-3-Hungry or 1-877-8-HAMBRE.

Myrtle Beach

This story was originally published July 13, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Tobin: Support summer feeding program."