All summer long...

Summer is a precarious time of year for childhood hunger because low-income children don’t have access to school meals. Historically, we have seen quite an uptick of children visiting food pantries and meal programs during this time of year. Although these places work fine in emergencies, they aren’t always the best places for children to be getting their meals consistently.

Since Hunger Task Force took the lead on this summer meals collaboration in 2004, we have turned it into a serious hunger-relief initiative—and children don’t have to rely on visiting soup kitchens or pantries. Thanks to significant support from the Harley-Davidson Foundation, we’ve greatly improved outreach, marketing, and staffing for the program. We worked closely with MPS to open up safe and secure neighborhood schools to offer meals, some including dinner. For 2007, the program served 710,640 meals at 165 sites.  This represents a 150 percent increase over 2003, the year before Hunger Task Force formed this collaboration. We expect to continue expanding the number of children served through this program, and to ensure that a sufficient number of sites are open all summer long. 

We need your help right now to get the word out in the community about the Summer Meals Program.  Call or e-mail our organizer, Laura Richard, at 414-777-0483/ laura@hungertaskforce.org  if you  or your  organization can  help  to make sure that  our  kids have meals to eat this summer.