The two most direct ways to get involved in the Summer Food Service Program in your community are to either become a sponsor or a feeding site. What’s the difference you may ask? Being a sponsor means acting as the organizer for Summer Food Service sites. Sponsors manage, train, supervise and monitor all food service activities and locations where children can eat. They also maintain paperwork and submit claims for reimbursement.

On Tuesday morning the auditorium at Ingels Elementary School was rockin’ and rollin’ as more than 200 students, teachers and invited guests joined with Health and Human Services staff to celebrate the one-year anniversary of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative.

Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) Nutrition Services Director, Rodney Taylor, knows the face of hunger in his community.  On a daily basis, Rodney’s team serve lunch to about 34,000 RUSD kids, 61 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced price meals.  While the RUSD staff offer these students a fresh, healthy, nutritious meal during the school year, where do students eat during the summer?  In previous years, many students ate lunch at summer school.  However, steep budget cuts in 2008 and 2009 forced many school districts, including RUSD, to drastically reduce their summer school sites to only three schools, leaving about 25,000 kids without a place to eat.  Without the summer school program, where would those kids eat?  That is where the RUSD's summer barbeques come in.

Summer Food Service Program – in the middle of winter?

That question is a common one when we talk about the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). During the school year, many children receive free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch through the School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs. What happens when school lets out? Hunger is one of the most severe roadblocks to the learning process. The Summer Food Service Program is designed to fill that nutrition gap and make sure children can get the nutritious meals they need.