Background 

The 2010 Agricultural, Rural Development, 

Food and Drug Administration and Related 

Agencies Appropriations Act enabled the 

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to 

initiate and carry out the Summer Food for 

Children demonstration projects, aimed at 

preventing food insecurity and hunger among 

children during summer months. The projects 

include the Enhanced Summer Food Service 

Program (eSFSP) demonstrations, which test the 

impact of a number of enhancements to the 

existing Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). 

The goal of the eSFSP projects was to identify 

ways to reach a greater number of SFSP-eligible 

children, and thus increase their participation and 

access to food during summer. 

The eSFSP demonstrations include four separate 

initiatives, two of which began in summer 2010 

and ended in 2011 with the other two launching 

in summer 2011 and continuing in the summer of 

2012. This report presents findings from the 

evaluation of the two 2012 demonstrations in six 

States: 

 The Meal Delivery demonstration (2011-2013) 

in Delaware, Massachusetts, and New York 

offered breakfast and lunch delivery to homes 

or drop-off sites near homes of eligible 

children in rural areas; and 

 The Backpack demonstration (2011-2013) in 

Arizona, Kansas, and Ohio provided weekend 

and holiday bags or packs with meals to SFSP 

children when SFSP sites were not open. 

Methods 

Data were collected through: (1) telephone 

interviews with parents of participants during 

summer and fall 2012; (2) interviews with key 

informants at the State, sponsor, and site levels 

gathered during site visits; and (3) cost data 

collection and analysis. The objectives were to 

examine factors associated with participation in 

the demonstration projects, conduct exploratory 

analyses on various outcome measures, including 

food security, collect information on the 

implementation and challenges of the two 

demonstrations, and compare the results to the 

findings from the 2011 evaluation. 

Findings 

Reach and Participation

Results from the current report indicate that the 

demonstration projects reached their intended 

target. For example, participation in the 

Backpack demonstrations was associated with 

having higher levels of poverty. The evaluation 

report for the 2011 demonstrations also found 

that poverty status was related to participation in 

the Backpack demonstration. 

The reason most commonly cited by households 

for participating in the Meal Delivery 

demonstration was that it met a need for 

participating households. Almost 74 percent of 

respondents reported that the child participants 

needed the food, while 8.3 percent indicated that 

the program helped financially. 

The influence of the 2012 demonstrations on 

participation as measured by average daily 

attendance and meals served will be evaluated in 

a separate report.

 

Food Security 

Exploratory analyses considered the relationship 

between the Meal Delivery and Backpack 

demonstrations and levels of adult, child, and 

EVALUATION OF 2012 ENHANCED SUMMER FOOD SERVICE PROGRAM DEMONSTRATIONS 

(SUMMARY) 

Food and Nutrition Service, Office of Policy Support November 2014
household food security during the summer and 

the fall. 

Results for 2012 show that, similar to 2011, there 

was no difference in food security between 

summer and fall across the three groups. This 

finding indicates that the demonstrations may 

have helped decrease summer food insecurity, 

when one would have expected lower food 

security. However, the absence of a difference 

may reflect the limitation of the small sample 

size. Other limitations are that the evaluation 

had no traditional baseline data or control group. 

Implementation 

The two types of demonstration projects differed 

in most aspects of implementation – recruitment 

and outreach, the types of food delivered, 

training, and technical assistance. However, key 

informant interviews indicated that, as they did 

in 2011, successful sites shared common 

characteristics, including previous experience 

operating an SFSP site or with other nutrition 

assistance programs; good use of partnerships, 

volunteers, and activities to make the projects 

family friendly (e.g., provision of menus so 

families could prepare meals together); a focus 

on healthful eating; and careful use of resources 

for efficiency. Interviews also revealed that 

many sites across both demonstrations hired 

consultants who focused exclusively on 

outreach, monitoring, and oversight. 

Sponsors for both demonstrations experienced 

challenges with finding adequate transportation 

and staffing, similar to the challenges faced in 

2011. Travel was a problem in the Meal 

Delivery demonstration, where the original intent 

of these demonstrations was to overcome this 

barrier. The large majority of Meal Delivery 

meals were delivered to a drop-off site, which 

posed problems for participants who lacked 

access to transportation. Meal Delivery sponsors 

also reported that because their demonstrations 

were only open to school-age children who were 

eligible for free or reduced-price meals, nonschool-age children in the same household who 

also may have needed nutrition assistance were 

not able to receive meals. However, key 

informants across both demonstrations 

consistently reported that they used their 

experience from 2011, and with traditional 

SFSP, to provide meals more efficiently to 

children and again expressed the belief that 

children were getting food to which they would 

not otherwise have access. 

Summary

The 2012 evaluation of the eSFSP 

demonstrations showed promising results similar 

to the findings from the 2011 evaluation. The 

analyses indicate that the demonstrations reached 

targeted children and that both types of 

demonstrations may have had a positive impact 

on summer food security.

The demonstrations differed in methods of 

implementation. Despite these differences, many 

experienced sponsors reported making good use 

of partnerships, volunteers, consultants, and 

various outreach efforts and activities to 

implement the demonstrations successfully and 

reach low-income children during the summer. 

For More Information

Elinson, L., Bethel, J., Deak, M. A., Li, S., Koenig, T., 

Caperna, K., Palan, M. (2013). Evaluation of the Summer 

Food Service Program Enhancement Demonstrations. 

2012 Demonstration Evaluation Report. Prepared by 

Westat. Project Officer: Chan Chanhatasilpa. Alexandria 

VA: United States Department of Agriculture, Food and 

Nutrition Service. 

Available online at: 

www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/DemoProjects/SummerFood

USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.