Thousands of Oklahoma children who depend on school meals for nutrition likely don’t have access to the same level of nutrition during the summer, a federal agriculture leader said.
Kevin Concannon, undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said although the USDA’s summer food service program has grown in Oklahoma, from fewer than 400 sites to now more than 500 locations feeding low-income children, that’s not enough to meet the need.
During the school year, about 400,000 students eat free or reduced lunches at school, and about 200,000 students have free or reduced breakfast at school. That same number of children aren’t being fed through the summer food program, he said.
Part of the issue is, not enough community leaders know about the summer food program and that they could start it in their cities. Another issue is transportation for the children to get to the program.
“For students and children in rural areas, it’s really difficult for them in the summer time because those wonderful yellow buses we’ve come to depend on aren’t running for the most part,” Concannon said.
Concannon answered a few questions about the program during a phone interview from his Washington, D.C. office.
How did the program start?
For more than 40 years, the USDA’s summer food service program has provided meals to low-income children while they’re not at school. The program first started as part of a larger pilot program in 1968 and then became a separate program in 1975, according to the USDA.