Issue: How well are the millions of children who receive

free or reduced-price lunches on a typical school day

through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP)

served during the summer? The Summer Food Service

Program (SFSP), the major Federal resource available to

provide children from low-income families with nutritious

meals when school is not in session, served 2.1 million

children in 2001, compared with the 15.5 million children

who received NLSP meals in 2001. Growing interest in

improving SFSP operations and expanding participation

led the U.S. Department of Agriculture to commission the

first comprehensive examination of the program since

1986. This issues brief reports findings from the study.

Background: USDA provides Federal funds to States to

operate the SFSP and States distribute the funds to local

sponsors. Sponsors include public and private schools,

local government agencies, residential summer camps, and

other private nonprofit organizations. Most SFSP sites are

in low-income neighborhoods and are open to all children. 

Findings: In the summer of 2001, more than 4,000 local

agencies provided SFSP meals at more than 35,000 feeding sites. Nearly all sites also offered other activities. On

average, SFSP sites were open for slightly longer than 7

weeks. Almost all sites were open for at least 5 days per

week.

SFSP sponsors are extremely diverse in the nature of their

organizations, the size of their programs, and the way they

prepare and serve meals. School food authorities comprised roughly half of all sponsors in 2001. They also ran

half of all sites and served half of all meals (fig. 1). Half

of all sponsors ran only one site, together serving 11 perUnited States

Department of

Agriculture

Economic 

Research

Service

Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Report Number 34-10 July 2003

WIC School

meals

CACPF General

School food authorities1 49%

Other nonprofit organiztions 12%

Government anencies 36%

Residential camps 3%

NYSPs2 0.4%

10%

31%

51%

7%

1%

Figure 1. School sponsors ran half of all SFSP sites and served half of all meals

1School food authorities are the governing bodies of schools or school districts that operate the NSLP.

2National Youth Sports Programs are federally funded sports camps for low-income children run by colleges of universities.

Source: Gordon et al., 2002.

Percent of sites Percent of meals

Feeding Low-Income

Children When School Is

Out: The Summer Food

Service Program

Food Assistance Research Brief

Jane Allshouse, allshous@ers.usda.gov, (202) 694-5449
2 Economic Research Service / USDA

Feeding Low-Income Children When School Is Out: The Summer Food Service Program/ FANRR-34-10

cent of all meals. By contrast, 1 percent of sponsors operated more than 100 sites, but these sponsors served 35 percent of all meals. Most sponsors (63 percent) prepared

meals themselves, most frequently at the serving site.

Nearly half of all sites served breakfast in addition to

lunch.

On average, SFSP meals provided at least one-quarter of

the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for key

nutrients at breakfast. Breakfasts fell slightly below the

standard for energy, and exceeded the guidelines for saturated fat. SFSP lunches provided at least one-third of the

RDA for energy and other key nutrients but exceeded the

guidelines for total fat and saturated fat. Children wasted

an average of about one-third of the calories and nutrients

they were served at both breakfast and lunch.

Almost all State agencies worked with outside organizations on outreach for the program. More than half of all

sponsors reported they were not interested in expanding

the number of sites or the duration of their operations, at

the same time that site supervisors typically reported that

they had the capacity to serve additional children. Site

supervisors cited a range of barriers that might explain

why children do not attend, with lack of transportation and

publicity about the program topping the list.

Summary: The study findings suggest two key SFSP challenges—(1) how to simplify the required paperwork and

the reimbursement structure without compromising program quality and integrity; and (2) where to target SFSP

expansion efforts.

Program regulations require careful documentation for

sponsor applications and claims, and extensive monitoring

of site operations by State agencies and sponsors.

However, many State and sponsor staff perceived the

detailed program rules and complex reimbursement procedures as burdensome, and some believed that they could

discourage program growth. In 2001, USDA began experimenting with several approaches to simplifying the reimbursement process. A 14-State pilot project—targeted to

States with low SFSP participation rates—allows sponsors

to combine administrative and operating costs and to be

reimbursed at a fixed reimbursement rate per meal, with

less paperwork. A second initiative, the “Seamless

Summer” waiver, allows schools to run community-based

summer feeding programs under the NSLP and to receive

the NSLP free rate (slightly lower than the SFSP rate) for

all meals served. Without the waiver, schools have to follow SFSP rules if they serve children during the summer

in community-based programs.

In an effort to target potential SFSP expansion efforts,

USDA has developed an interactive website, which combines data on 2001 sponsors and sites, Census 2000 data

on small geographic areas, and school census data. Using

geographic information software, State and local users can

produce maps to identify unmet needs and potential new

site locations. The map is available at: www.ers.usda.gov/

data/SFSP.

The website visually displays SFSP sponsors and sites in

geographic relation to concentrated areas of child poverty

and provides data in tabular form to permit methodical

examination of results.

The website allows users to infer at a glance whether program sites are located in the areas of highest need, and

whether some qualified areas have been overlooked. It

also allows for in-depth analysis of program coverage

using the underlying data from the three databases. 

Information Source:

Gordon, Anne, Ronette Briefel, Karen Needels, Nancy Wemmerus,

Teresa Zavitsky, Randy Rosso, Tania Tasse, Laura Kalb, Anne Peterson,

and Darryl Creel. Feeding Low-Income Children When School Is Out:

The Summer Food Service Program: Final Report. E-FAN-03-001. U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2003.

Available at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/efan03001.

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