USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon today announced significant investments in states and tribal areas across the country to test innovative ways to address a critical need – providing low-income children with access to healthy nutrition during the summer.

“Low-income children are at a heightened risk for food insecurity in the summer months, when schools are closed and many low-income children find it difficult to get the healthy nutrition they need,” Concannon said. “These projects offer a wonderful opportunity to build on the success of the Summer Food Service Program and explore new ways to combat childhood hunger.”

The $5.5 million in grant awards announced today – the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer for Children Demonstrations (SEBTC) – are a result of requirements included by Congress in the fiscal year 2010 appropriations. That Act required USDA to test different methods of providing low-income children improved access to food during the summer months. Today’s announced projects will use the electronic benefit infrastructure of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children to give low-income families with school-age children more food resources to use at the store during the summer. Families will receive a card, similar to a debit card, which they can use in stores to buy food.

Five states will receive grants to continue their 2011 demonstrations in 2012 (four will also expand their reach into new areas within the state), and five states and tribal entities will begin new demonstration projects. The projects will provide food for about 75,000 low-income children in rural and urban areas. Grantees include:

• Michigan (WIC) – Grand Rapids and Clare, Gladwin, Midland, Arenac, Bay, and Tuscola Counties
• Texas (WIC) – El Paso
• Connecticut (SNAP) – Windham, New London and Tolland Counties
• Missouri (SNAP) – Kansas City and Saint Louis
• Oregon (SNAP) – Linn, Jefferson and Marion Counties

Awards also include the following new states and tribal entities:

• Cherokee Nation (WIC) –Adair, Cherokee, Delaware, Mayes, and Sequoyah Counties
• Chickasaw Nation (WIC) – Carter, Coal, Garvin, Johnston, Marshall, McLain, Murray, and Pontotoc Counties
• Nevada (WIC) – Douglas, Lyon, and Washoe Counties
• Delaware (SNAP) – New Castle County
• Washington (SNAP) – Clark County

These demonstrations complement others that operated last summer to test enhancements to USDA’s Summer Food Service Program, a vital part of America’s nutrition safety net, which serves more than 2 million children every summer. All of these projects will provide critical information about the impact of cutting-edge nutrition interventions on achieving real progress in the fight against hunger among our children during the summer months.

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service administers 15 nutrition assistance programs including SFSP, SNAP, WIC, the National School Lunch Program; and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. Together these programs make up the federal nutrition safety net.
USDA administers these programs in partnership with State and local agencies, and works with faith and community-based organizations to ensure that nutrition assistance is available to those in need.

Washington, DC, October 5, 2011 – Today, USDA's Food and Nutrition Service announced the winners of the first ever Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) "Food, Fun and Sun!" Story and Photo contest to highlight how the program provides free, healthy meals to children in low-income areas during the summer. Launched earlier in the summer, USDA received over 100 submissions representing sponsors and sites in over forty states.

"We must do all we can to ensure that children get nutritious food during the summer so they are ready to learn and succeed during the school year. The organizations that participated in the contest demonstrate the commitment that people in many communities have made to reach this goal." said Kevin Concannon, USDA Undersecretary for Food Nutrition and Consumer Services. "All organizations participating highlighted the critical role of the Summer Food Service Program in ending childhood hunger by providing our children the nutrition needed to be healthy, active and ready to win the future."

"Food, Fun and Sun!" showcases successful, model programs in four categories to share with SFSP sponsors and sites across the country. Photo contest categories and winners include:

• Volunteers: Using volunteers to support their work: Youth and Family Services (Rapid City, SD)
• Older Children: Addressing hunger among older kids, aged 12-18: Boys and Girls Club of Ada County (Boise, ID.)
• Rural: Successful programs in rural areas: Running Strong (Eagle Butte, SD)
• Creative: Programs that "think outside the box" serving kids and teens: Kinsley Library, (Kinsley, KS)

For more details about the Food, Fun and Sun! Summer Food Service Program Story and Photo Contest including winning submissions, please visit the SFSP Contest webpage at https://www.fns.usda.gov/sfsp/summer-food-service-program.

The SFSP, a federally funded program designed to alleviate hunger during the summer for children 18 years old and younger, operates through partnerships between USDA, state agencies and local organizations. Program sponsors, which include schools, government agencies, residential and non-residential camps, non-profit organizations, and faith-based organizations, served nearly 134 million meals at eligible sites in 2010.

During the regular school year, about 21 million children from low-income households receive free or reduced-price meals through USDA's School Breakfast and National School Lunch programs, compared to about 3 million fed through summer programs. Hunger doesn't take a summer vacation – and communities across the Nation are working hard to make sure every child has the food they need, even when school is not in session.

USDA's most recent data shows that while in most households, children were protected from substantial reductions in food intake, children experienced very low food security in about 386,000 households (1 percent of households with children) in 2010. In these households, one or more children do not get enough to eat – they had to cut the size of their meals, skip meals, or even go whole days without food at some time during the year.

To tackle this challenge, this year FNS has launched several opportunities under the Ending Childhood Hunger initiative to include:

• Stakeholder Guide to Ending Childhood Hunger, a guide to assist individuals and organizations in choosing value-added activities and finding resources to help end childhood hunger;
• Ending Childhood Hunger Video Contest (endhunger.challenge.gov), an opportunity for students in grades one through 12 to submit short videos about what they are doing, or what ideas they have about ending childhood hunger. The submission period runs through Oct. 21, 2011.
• Become a Champion to End Hunger, an online commitment drive that encourages organizations and the public to select actions they will take to reduce childhood hunger;
• End Hunger Volunteerism Portal, a website developed by CNCS where organizations can post volunteer opportunities and individuals can search for volunteer opportunities in their communities;

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) oversees the administration of 15 nutrition assistance programs, including the child nutrition programs, that touch the lives of one in four Americans over the course of a year. These programs work in concert to form a national safety net against hunger.

Washington, DC, September 14, 2011 — USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon today highlighted the results of two Summer Food Service Program pilot programs in Arkansas and Mississippi that used incentives to increase participation among low-income children. The study found that the innovative pilot programs were associated with an increased average participation rate among kids in the Summer Food Service Programs by 35 percent in Arkansas and 19 percent in Mississippi.

"Hunger doesn't take a summer vacation, and the Summer Food Service Program helps to ensure that disadvantaged children receive the wholesome, nutritious meals they need when school is out," said Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon. "Through these demonstration projects, we hope to find innovative ways to increase access to and participation in this valuable program, to help fill the summer nutrition gap."

The program report assesses the impact of two 2010 Enhanced Summer Food Service Program demonstrations designed to prevent food insecurity and hunger among children during the summer months when school is out. The Arkansas demonstration offered per-lunch incentives to encourage SFSP providers or sponsors to operate for a greater portion of the summer. The Mississippi demonstration offered new recreational or educational activities at SFSP feeding sites to foster higher levels of participation. While a number of other factors in these states, including some additional funding used by Arkansas to enhance the program, may have influenced the results, the changes observed are consistent with generally positive impacts from the demonstrations.

Additional projects, underway this year, will test home delivery of meals and a backpack food program for kids on days when the traditional SFSP is not operating, as well as household-based summer feeding approaches using the EBT infrastructure of SNAP and WIC.

The results also come during Hunger Action Month. USDA has been collaborating with Feeding America, the sponsor of Hunger Action Month, during September to spread the word about actions that many different stakeholders can take to end hunger. Expanding access to the Summer Food Service Program is an integral part of this message.

USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Janey Thornton said, "Summer Food Service Programs offer opportunities to continue a child's physical and social development while providing nutritious meals during long vacation periods. It helps children return to school prepared to achieve at their highest academic potential."

SFSP sites operate in low-income areas where at least half of the children come from families with incomes at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level, making them eligible for free and reduced-price school meals. Meals are served free to any child at the open site. Enrolled sites provide free meals to children enrolled in an activity program at the site where at least half of them are eligible for free and reduced-price meals.

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service oversees 15 nutrition assistance programs that touch the lives of one in four Americans over the course of a year. The programs work together to form a national safety net against hunger. The National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs provide nutritionally balanced, free and low-cost meals to nearly 32 million school children each school day. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program puts healthy food in reach for more than 45 million Americans each month, half of whom are children.

Washington, DC, September 7, 2011 - USDA Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Under Secretary Kevin Concannon today announced the results of USDA's Household Food Security in the United States, 2010 report that found that the percentage of very low food security declined from 5.7 percent of households in 2009 to 5.4 percent in 2010. The USDA study indicated that in 2010, 17.2 million households in America had difficulty providing enough food due to a lack of resources. The number of food insecure households in 2010 was relatively consistent with statistics released in 2008 and 2009.

"This report underscores the critical role that federal nutrition assistance programs play in helping struggling American families put food on the table until they can get back on their feet," said Concannon. "Many families receive assistance not because they want to, but because they need it as a last resort to make ends meet. As the economy continues to recover and jobs are created, we hope to see the number of families in need of nutrition assistance shrink."

The report released today indicates that 59 percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest nutrition assistance programs near the time of the survey.

In fiscal year 2010, these programs provided much needed food assistance to millions of individuals, children and families in need:

• In an average month of fiscal year 2010 (Oct. 1, 2009 through Sept. 30, 2010), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provided benefits to 40.3 million people in the United States.
• In fiscal year 2010, the National School Lunch Program provided meals to an average of 31.6 million children each school day.
• In fiscal year 2010, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children served an average 9.2 million participants per month.

Food insecurity rates were substantially higher than the national average for households with incomes near or below the current federal poverty line ($22,350 for a family of four), households with children headed by single women or single men, and black and Hispanic households. Food insecurity was more common in large cities and rural areas than in suburban areas and other outlying areas around large cities.

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service administers 15 nutrition assistance programs including the Summer Food Service Program; SNAP; NSLP; WIC; and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. Together these programs make up the federal nutrition safety net. USDA administers these programs in partnership with state and local agencies and works with faith and community-based organizations to ensure that nutrition assistance is available to those in need. Additional information about the programs can be found at www.fns.usda.gov.