Summer Program For Hungry Kids Gets Creative

[summer]

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:



More than 21 million children get free or reduced price meals during the school year. The programs get healthy meals to kids who might otherwise go hungry. During the summer that number drops to 3 million. There's a big push happening right now by the government and nonprofits to reach more kids while school's out. NPR's Pam Fessler traveled to Western Kentucky to report on the effort there.



PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Hopkins County Kentucky is rural, with farms, coalfields, gently rolling hills. So, when school's out the children are widely dispersed and often isolated. And that's a challenge for the local YMCA, which is trying to help feed some of them. And that's why a red pickup truck with two YMCA workers in front and coolers of food in the back has just stopped at a Baptist Church in the small town of Earlington.



DON EGBERT: Hey dude.



UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: How's it going, buddy?



EGBERT: Pretty good. You?



FESSLER: Church volunteer, Don Egbert has been waiting for today's lunch delivery, pork barbecue sandwiches, carrots, strawberries and milk. The Y feeds about 700 children a day in summer, increasingly along mobile routes like this one. No sooner is lunch set out on a long table here when two little girls rush in.



EGBERT: How you girls doing today?



KIARRA CROOK: Good.



CIARA CROOK: Good.



EGBERT: Good? What you been up to?



K. CROOK: Nothing.



C. CROOK: Nothing.



EGBERT: Nothing much?



FESSLER: Kiarra and Ciara Crook are ages seven and eight. Egbert says they come here every day like clockwork.



FESSLER: How come?



C. CROOK: Well, we don't have any food at home, so.



FESSLER: Ciara looks at me like I'm a little dense. She says her mom works but only gets paid once a month. Next to arrive is Deanna Brewster, who comes with five neighborhood children for lunch. She says these kids automatically get fed when school's in session but in summer it's a different story. She says it's difficult for some children.



DEANNA BREWSTER: They have at least one good meal a day.



FESSLER: So, what would they be eating?



BREWSTER: Probably a pack of noodles, you know, I mean that's the truth about it. You know, it's hard these days.



ED WALLACE: This is a trailer park and this is another one. And then Cross Creek is a subsidized housing area.



FESSLER: Ed Wallace runs the Hopkins County Family YMCA. He's showing a map on his wall where he's circled in black marker what he calls pockets of poverty. Areas in the county were kids not only lack money but often transportation or parental supervision.



WALLACE: There are children who their parents are not home. I know some of the housing sites over the years where the parents have kind of, locked them out and they're just on their own.



FESSLER: Eating who's knows what, if at all. In this program, which is funded by the U.S. Agriculture Department, any child who shows up gets a free lunch, no questions asked. They just have to live in an area where more than half the children qualify for free or reduced price meals at school, which is most of Hopkins County. Wallace uses the mobile routes to target the harder to reach areas.



WALLACE: We stop, feed them, make sure they're eating and then we move on to the next site.



FESSLER: So, we're driving up and I can see about five or six kids, all waiting in line. We're at the fourth stop of the day. A subsidized apartment complex in Dawson Springs, about a half-hour from the Y. Many of the kids on line are holding white plastic grocery bags. They're supposed to eat here at a picnic table, where the food is delivered but truth be told many take some of it home for siblings and maybe a parent.



UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: What are these? I need two more.



UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Let me guess. For your sister?



UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: No, for my uncle and aunt.



UNIDENTIFIED MAN: For your - how old are your uncle and aunt?



UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: One of them are 11, one of them are 14.



FESSLER: It's hard to say no. Carrie Kovach stands nearby. As her children, ages two, five and six unwrap their barbecue sandwiches. Kovach says she and her husband both work but it's hard to pay the bills. So, the free lunch helps.



CARRIE KOVACH: It does. Because food costs a lot nowadays and feeding three kids, yeah.



FESSLER: There are similar efforts across the country this summer. Libraries sending lunches out on bookmobiles, food banks delivering meals directly to children's homes, cities serving lunch at public housing projects, were parents are afraid to let their kids out alone. Educators say when school reopens, they can tell which children did not eat well over the summer. They're less focused, less ready to learn. Billy Shore heads Share Our Strength, a national food advocacy group.



BILLY SHORE: Imagine if Children's Hospital said we're not going to be open during the summer, if the fire department said we're not going to be open in the summertime. Right? It makes no sense. I mean, this is a critical service, kids need it. It's got to be provided all year round.



FESSLER: The problem is right now the summer program is kind of hit or miss. It relies on a loose network of agencies and volunteers, still trying to figure out the best way to reach needy kids when they're not in school.



UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 2: Thank you.



UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Chocolate or white - milk?



CHILD 2: White.



UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 3: Chocolate.



MAN 2: There you go.



CHILD 2: Thank you.



MAN 2: You're welcome.

[downtoearth]

These are some good programs. I love that the local YMCA steps in when school is out.

I think I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but a local non-profit provides lunch to low income kids in the summer along with free childcare/camp for kids aged 6 to 12.

[illgetthere]

One of our local school systems does this. Free lunch for any kid at most of the elementary schools with a handful also providing dinner. Adults can eat for a nominal fee.

[summer]

Can we talk also about how all these kids are apparently left unsupervised all day and no one has arrested their parents yet. I'm still mad about that other story.