The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is seeking nonprofit sponsors to help provide meals for children over the summer through its Summer Food Service Program.
The program is run each summer and is federally funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SUN Meals Summer Food Service Program. The state identifies nonprofit organizations to serve the meals in eligible areas where at least 50% of the population qualifies for free or reduced lunches, and the organizations are reimbursed for the cost of providing the food through USDA funds.
Summer Food Service Program Coordinator Tanya Harvey says to qualify, nonprofits must be able to serve one to two meals per day that meet USDA meal component guidelines - usually a breakfast and lunch or a snack and a supper.
“There are components to each meal: milk, vegetable, fruit or juice, grains or bread, and meat or meat alternate. So for lunch, we're looking for a milk, two different vegetables and or fruits, meat or meat alternate, and a grain or bread,” Harvey said. “It's a pretty open meal pattern, but it's still providing a rounded meal for those children in the summer.”
Harvey said last summer, some 300 sponsor organizations provided more than 4.5 million meals to children across the state.
“Any child can come and get a meal that lives in that area….they just keep track of how many children come, but they do not have to give them names of those children or anything like that. And there's no enrollment form,” Harvey said.
Even though the program is one of some 2,600 whose funding could be slashed by Trump administration policies, Harvey said the program hasn’t been impacted yet. She said funding is secure as of right now.
“Everything should be running smoothly regarding our program this summer,” Harvey said.
Harvey says nonprofits who wish to become sponsors can visit DHSS’s SFSP website to apply through May 1. Families can use the same link to find meal sites during the summer, as well as DHSS’s new interactive map.
