Cure Hunger Blog

What’s for lunch? Sadly, for children soon out of school for the summer, the question is, will there be any lunch?

The recession has hit a mighty blow to families in east central Indiana. Children are hungry. Food insecurity is the current term. It describes people who have limited or uncertain access to adequate food. With unemployment still in the double digits – 12 percent in some parts of the Second Harvest Food Bank service area — more people are food insecure than ever before. Even worse are those households that have very low food security.

These neighbors of ours are cutting meal portions, skipping meals, going the whole day without eating and are worrying about running out of food.

Unbelievably, one in four American children don’t have enough food to eat. Children living in East Central Indiana are no exception. Families are depending on food pantries and kitchens.

Our eight-county area has a population under 500,000 people. Close to 70,000 of them relied on emergency food last year and 44 percent of those were children.

We are lucky to have the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs here in Indiana. During the school year, children have access to nourishing meals. So what happens when school is out? With a lot of help from Indiana’s own U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar, the Summer Food Service Program is in place. Unlike school lunch, this program has no built-in population of children to serve on a daily basis.

For the most part, we have to go find them. Second Harvest Food Bank has been a sponsor of Summer Food for many years. We work with groups in our region who have summer programs for children and want to provide lunch. Last summer we sponsored 19 of the 47 sites throughout East Central Indiana.

School systems are the most natural link to children for Summer Food. The federal government offers a seamless summer program where the food service continues naturally from school lunch into Summer Food to make sure children are fed when school is out. Elwood Community Schools, Wabash City Schools, Delaware Community Schools and Randolph Eastern all offered Summer Food last year.

Jay Turner directs food services for Elwood Community Schools in Madison County. He is also the regional representative for the Indiana School Nutrition Association. Jay says doing Summer Food at schools is a no-brainer, “It is almost a must in this economy. I strongly suggest any school do Summer Food.”

Jay is willing to guide schools through the process and can be contacted at 552-1900, ext. 6200.

Jay said that many Indiana schools do summer food in their buildings. Elwood will do so during the summer school programs. They elected to shift one school program to the nearby Calloway Park and saw participation jump from 15 children a day to more than 100. Jay pointed out that program costs are reimbursed by the federal Summer Food Service Program making it entirely feasible for area schools to fully participate.

The deadline to become a sponsor is April 26. Go to www.doe.in.gov/food/summer/welcome.html. Organizations may provide sites for existing sponsors; phone Erin Rockhill at 287-8698 ext 102 for more information.