During the school year, more than 300,000 Minnesota children receive free or reduced-price school meals. But when summer arrives, only about 15 percent of these kids continue to access supportive meal programs. To fill this gap, Second Harvest Heartland teams up with the Minnesota Department of Education to help connect kids with summer meals.
This summer, we launched a new Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area outreach campaign in Metro Transit buses, lightrail trains and neighborhood newspapers to promote and expand participation in the USDA’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP); those interested were asked to text for more information. To date, trends show a positive increase over past years in the number of text messages received from kids and their families looking for an SFSP meal site, indicating significant growth in program interest, and ultimately, connecting more kids with more meals over the summer.
