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National Public Radio
School's Out,
And For Many Students, So Is Lunch
July 7, 2016
Avery Lill
During the school year, about 30.3 million children receive free or
reduced-price lunches at their public schools. But in the summer, only
2.6 million of those students receive a free or reduced lunch. That's
fewer than 10 percent.
When school is out, free lunches are only offered at select locations
through each school district, not at every school, so transportation is
often the biggest barrier between kids and lunch.
Many Neighborhoods Affected
Alexandria, Va., is one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S. — its
median annual income of $83,135 is the 23rd-highest in the country.
And yet, 76 percent of students at Francis C. Hammond Middle School in
northwest Alexandria receive free and reduced-price lunches from the
school during the year.
The woman who helps students connect with food aid from the school and
from other organizations is Isabel Pérez. She is the school's site
coordinator for the AmeriCorps program, Communities in Schools.
When school is in session, her small office just inside the school's
main entrance is piled high with grocery bags. Each bag is a stash of
food for a student to take home for the weekend. The weekend food bags
students take home on the last day of school may be the last food aid
that some students receive for the summer.
Pérez says many of the students at Hammond get to school via bus, and
during the summer, those buses don't run.
"They're just going to have to navigate the public city buses," she
says. "Which is kind of scary if you think about it. And so if they
don't live right next to a rec center, ... I have no idea how they're
going to get food, and that's a little bit disconcerting."
In counties with fewer resources, the problem is magnified. Holmes
County in Mississippi is the most food insecure county in the U.S. Kids
are affected too — nearly 40 percent of children there have poor access
to food. For Angel Meeks, the superintendent for the Holmes County
School District, food insecurity is not an abstract idea. It is a
reality in the lives of one out every three of her students.
For more news and information, go to National Public Radio
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