State Superintendent of Public Instruction
According to the California Food Policy Advocates, an Oakland-based nonprofit, 85 percent of students in California, or more than 1.7 million children, who receive free or reduced-price meals during the school year miss out on similar sustenance during the summer.
- Summer food programs are especially important for low-income students.
The CDE provides several pathways for schools and nonprofit organizations to provide summer meals, including the Seamless Summer Option. The SSO is a program that encourages more public school districts and county offices of education to provide meals in low-income areas during summer and certain other school vacation periods. It reduces paperwork and administrative burdens, making it easier for sponsors to feed children.
The funding also helps bring in revenue to local communities that are often high-poverty areas. During the 2016–17 school year, for example, a recent analysis for the California Department of Food and Agriculture found that this support equaled more than $2 billion. “The buying power this represents and the potential impact on the economy and the environment go far beyond the agricultural sector,” the report by the UC Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development said, pointing in particular to the importance of purchasing locally sourced ingredients. School kitchens using local ingredients can also help producers cut down on food waste by buying perfectly edible but noncommercial goods, such as fruit that is cosmetically too small for markets. (The CDE also has new guidance available on how schools can cut down on their own costly food waste.)