Fueling Young Minds

Since 2002, Hunger Task Force and Harley-Davidson Foundation have teamed up to run the Fueling Young Minds summer meals program. Fueling Young Minds has become a summer tradition in Milwaukee County, providing FREE meals to kids under 18 every weekday until the end of August.

Fueling Young Minds was awarded the 2005 United States Department of Agriculture’s Summer Sunshine Award! The program serves as a successful public-private summer meals partnership model for other communities to replicate.

Fueling Young Minds sets up schools and recreation centers as meal sites, and staff supervise kids while they eat safe and healthy meals throughout the summer. In the summer of 2010,

• 173 meal sites are set up across Milwaukee County.
• Coalition partners included Milwaukee Public Schools District, West Allis/West Milwaukee School District, Milwaukee Center for Independence, Boys & Girls Clubs, Social Development Commission, Salvation Army, and HeartLove Place.
• 33 locations stepped up to help serve suppers, a third meal, to hungry kids.
• Community volunteers participated in an outreach campaign so families knew where supper sites were located.

All children are welcome to eat at a Fueling Young Minds site -- no paperwork or registration required! To find the nearest meal location, parents and students can simply dial 211 from a landline phone or (866)-211-3380 from a cell phone. And watch for our orange meal site signs—pointing the way to a healthy summer for Milwaukee’s kids!

Please contact our organizer, Mary Ryan, with questions about summer meals.