Summer is still several months away, but state officials are already planning to provide meals to kids during summer break. The Kentucky Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced sponsor trainings for the Summer Food Service Program.
Program manager Cathy Ghallagher said sponsors must be a non-profit that provides services consistently.
“Someone couldn’t form a non-profit organization just to do this program and not do anything else. It has to be an organization that provides year-round services. And there are a variety of those across Kentucky, community action agencies, food banks, we have one church that’s a sponsor,” said Gallagher.
Most program sponsors are school districts.
Gallagher said sponsors are reimbursed for the meals they provide based on a scale from the USDA. The Summer Food Service Program Manager adds that from year to year, the KDE works with communities and sponsors to identify food sites that would be best served by the program.
Gallagher said in recent years, sponsors have been encouraged to create mobile meal sites.
“Where they have a vehicle that they take out and just go from one location to the next already determined locations with standing meal times so kids and families know when to go there. That way they can get out, especially in those rural communities,” said Gallagher.
Gallagher added that mobile meal operations are also very effective in urban areas. The Kentucky Department of Education will hold targeted trainings in the spring that will detail mobile meal sites.
Gallagher said the meal site text search will be available again this summer. People can text the word FOOD to 304304 to find a location near them.
More information can be found at here.
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