WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A late action by Congress last week to extend free meals for students this summer may have come too late for some summer food programs, meaning that free meals may be harder to find than in the recent past.
Final passage of the Keep Kids Fed Act in the U.S. House on June 24 came less than a week before rule changes for child nutrition programs were set to expire June 30, the Associated Press reported. The legislation is intended to extend rules that were adopted soon after COVID-19 disrupted schools across the country so that summer meal distribution sites could operate in any community with need, rather than just where there’s a high concentration of low-income children, and offer to-go meals.
But the legislation may have come too late for schools to set up programs for this summer, said Rosie Krueger, Vermont’s director of child nutrition programs.
“It’s going to be pretty difficult for us to react and have an impact,” she said.
Some schools that had hoped to run open meal sites, where any child 18 or under can come and pick up a free meal, couldn’t because they weren’t located in a low-income area, defined as either a location where at least 50% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals or as a low-income census tract.
While some schools that wanted to operate summer meal programs, but couldn’t because they didn’t meet the income threshold, could open now, Krueger said that it might be hard for them to get the employees and supplies necessary to do so.
“It’s late June,” Krueger said the Wednesday before the bill was signed. Programs may have “already told their staff they don’t have anything for them (and they) haven’t done the ordering.”
An online U.S. Department of Agriculture map of summer meal programs only shows Upper Valley sites in White River Junction, Windsor and Randolph. That’s in stark contrast to the past couple of years when many Upper Valley schools were offering free summer meals. Even the sites that are open have changed the way they’re operating this year.
Fewer opportunities for free meals come as many families’ budgets are strained by inflation, gas prices and other higher energy costs.
“I guess during COVID there were fewer restrictions because the goal was just to get more people fed,” said Kelly Clements, Hartford Community Coalition’s program director. This year, as HCC has organized its annual Take a Bite Out of Hunger program, Clements said organizers have been “running into more red tape.”
Last year, Hartford Community Coalition operated five open meal sites, which anyone could utilize, at the town’s libraries. But this year, HCC is operating just two open sites: one at Hartford High School and the other at the White River School, both schools that meet the USDA’s area-eligibility requirement. People can pick up bags filled with seven days’ worth of lunches and breakfasts at the White River School on Mondays between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., or Hartford High School on Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The recent change in federal law might allow HCC to open more sites later in the summer, but that wasn’t clear because it could take a while to get them organized, Clements said.
“Maybe it will help us out with the second half of the program, but we will see,” she said.
This year, the HCC has asked that people sign up for the meals in advance at hccvt.org/, which Clements said at least initially has had the effect of reducing the number of people served.
“We’re super sad that our ability to really get at some of the access that people have to meals has decreased this summer,” said Emily Musty Zanleoni, HCC’s executive director. That’s “all the more reason for people to go to our website and see what the opportunities and options are for accessing our meals.”
Those who have come to pick up meals so far have expressed their gratitude and appreciated not having to come every day when gas prices are so high, Clements said.
The program still provides daily meals to some camps and Twin Pines Housing sites, and those numbers have remained relatively steady compared with prior years, she said.
Meanwhile, the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union is offering free meals for children this summer, but only at one site during its summer school, which runs from July 11 to Aug. 5. During those weeks, free breakfasts and lunches will be available from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Monday-Friday at the State Street School, 127 State St.
That’s in stark contrast to last summer, when the supervisory union gave out meals at 10 sites.
“It just created a lot of waste,” Craig Locarno, food services director for the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union, said of last year.
Last year, Locarno said one site at a park would serve 15 children one day and two the next.
“There was no way to really create a system that was efficient enough that we wouldn’t create waste,” he said.
While some summer meal programs required preorders, Locarno said he doesn’t think that model addresses children’s needs.
“I think (for) kids, every day is a different scenario,” he said. “Some days kids are hungry. Some days they go to grandma’s.”
He wants them to come get food when they’re hungry, he said, “and I try to have enough for them.”
Gauging that need became more difficult amid the pandemic relief programs, he said.
“I’m just having a hard time of understanding the real need in the Windsor district,” said Locarno, a Barre, Vt., resident. “I think there’s more support, more resources today than our history. I just think it’s getting saturated. There’s so much government help, state help, that people just don’t need it.”
He noted that Windsor has food pantries available.
In contrast, the Claremont Soup Kitchen, with philanthropic support, has opted to forgo reimbursement from the USDA this summer and manage the summer meals program on its own.
Cindy Stevens, the soup kitchen’s executive director, said the organization opted to move forward without the USDA reimbursement because then it could continue to provide meals as grab-and-go, which is important because the program includes some outdoor sites without shelter for inclement weather. In addition, the program is able to give participants breakfast for the next day and allow accompanying adults to get meals. It also makes it easier to use donated goods, such as white bread, that aren’t allowed under USDA guidelines.
“I think our biggest factor in it was that … during the pandemic we were able to see that there were so many more people accessing the program,” Stevens said.
For example, she said, a grandmother would come on her lunch break to pick up meals for her daughter who was at home with her kids.
With about $25,000 in support from donors, Stevens said the soup kitchen is in a “good position to take on the program on our own.”
The program has expanded from four to five sites this year. Meals are available through Aug. 26, Monday-Friday from noon-1 p.m. at Monadnock Park, 190 Broad St.; Veterans Park, 25 Veteran’s Park Road; Barnes Park, 9 Bernard Way; Claremont Soup Kitchen, 53 Central St.; and a parking lot located at 135 Maple Ave.
On the second day of the program, June 21, the program served 85 meals.
“We struggled last year to hit that mark,” Stevens said. “This is amazing.”
Stevens has fielded calls from other communities interested in partnering with the soup kitchen to serve meals, but she said transporting meals over a distance would be too much for the limited staff and volunteers available.
“It just got to be too late,” Stevens said of the other programs. That’s what was “good about us having our program; (we) didn’t have to wait for the what-ifs.”
In spite of the passage of the Keep Kids Fed Act, federal rules that have allowed all students to receive meals for free at school, regardless of family income level, are still set to expire before the next academic year. While Vermont has passed legislation to extend free meals for all students through the coming school year using state money, New Hampshire has not.
It’s a loss Stevens said she expects families will feel.
“Those families used to getting that meal — breakfast and lunch — that’s a cost that they didn’t have,” Steven said. “Now they’re going to have (that) on top of all of the inflation and the struggle that’s going on right now.”
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
