School Is Out But Hunger Lingers For Some San Diego Kids

Thank you for your support because Becca is KPBS Midday Edition I Maureen Cavanaugh. You may be later with a catchphrase of San Diego summer program, schools out, hunger’s not. Many students rely on school meals through the years are at risk of not having enough to eat during the summertime to the Each year, schools and nonprofits around the county try to find the funds to provide meals through the summer months. Today, San Diego unified is kicking up its summer fun Café. At skyline Hills committee part because Becca KPBS education reporters met -- is there. This kickoff was billed as a big party, is that what it was? Yes. It's a huge party. There serving food and lunch to what the school district estimated 1500 people that showed up, have a whole carnival showed -- set up. This focus of activities to keep kids active and healthy in the summertime. You say lots of kids. And family's shadow. Entire families. This event is to kick off event seller feeding everyone who showed up. They had Robo calls out to every family in the neighborhood that this was going on and to come out. Any child under 18, they are eating for free, the adults are only two dollars. What was on the menu? They had hot dogs and hamburgers, the districts farm to school program brought out all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables so it wasn't just the typical barbecue meat there, it was a lot more variety with fruits and vegetables. Despite scaling his committee kickoff events, where does San Diego unified host these summer fun Café is? They're having them at sites all across the district. They got them in 27 rec centers, 14 committee centers, 17 schools, they're working with the city of San Diego, the person next department to put them in several parks, public libraries. The YMCA military child and youth program, all kinds of committee centers all across town. It's a huge list of locations that any parent can take their child under 18, they will eat free. In addition to the fine today, with the performers and the barbecue, what did people have to say about the serious issue of hunger during the summertime? It's a big issue. 60% of San Diego unified students qualify for the federal free or reduced lunch program. I was talking to people they set the number increases the further south you go to about 80%. A lot of kids would go hungry if it weren't for these programs. I think the human KPBS education programatic bowler hits at the kickoff of the summer fun Café at a barbecue at skyline Hills committee Park. Thank you. Earlier today I spoke about San Diego unified summer meal program with Gary Patel, he is a district director of food and nutrition services. Kerry, could you give us some context for the summer fun Café. How many San Diego unified students rely on school meals during the school year? About 60% of our kids do rely on school meals every day for breakfast and lunch. Said that problem of hunger translates into the summertime also is that right? Yes. When school is out, we find we have to have opportunities and places to offer lunch and snacks to the kids in the neighborhoods. Is are there that many kids that don't have food at all really don't have nutritious me? A lot of parents work, when they work the kids are at home when they are out of school, these are places, parks and rec centers, libraries, military bases, committee centers that the kids can go to throughout the summer and there's activities for the children to participate in. It's a safe place to leave your kids. It's also a great place to have a great lunch and a snack in the afternoon. Summer food program has been going on for 12 years. Has it gone? It has grown so much. We started off with six sites Xavier 58 locations throughout San Diego that we serve lunch and snacks. How many kids on any given day which you see at a certain site? It ranges between 50 and 200 children would come to the sites on a daily basis. Registered really depending on the locations in areas and activities that they have. You say the kids also stay at locations after having a meal or snack. What else can they do there? At the park and rec centers that we partner with in the city of San Diego we serve 27 at those locations of this year. Is a swimming, tennis, hiking, is a lot of physical activity that really goes well with healthy nutritional ill. Is what our kids today need. They need to unplug a little bit and this gives them the opportunity to do that. Sometimes when children come to the summer Café program, do they have to show some sort of identification that they are also on the school meal program during the school year? No. Ages 18 and under eater free no questions asked. Know people are. If you are visiting from somewhere else in California or Arizona, and you happen to come upon a park and rec center, you can eat for free. It's a national program funded by the Department of agriculture. Via backpack program. That still goes on. It helps for families on the weekends. Some of that is run with the district in conjunction with feeding America and the feedback. That works really well to help families throughout the week during the school year. What kind of meals to San Diego if I provide at these summer on Is? We have some amazing meals. Would lead to a hot dog, we to Applegate rearrange grass fed leaf hot topic a For going to do about it, we want to do it right. Today we have a great barbecue. We do barbecue set all these venues throughout the entire summer. Will do sandwiches, wraps, that type of food. Sort of thought of fruits and vegetables. The fruits and vegetables come from the local farmers organic that we buy anyone to support the local farmers. That has been a big push as the district or to food and nutrition services. You want to make sure it's not only healthy food it's whenever possible locally grown is that right? Yes. We need to buy local and that's our goal. Everything we can provide our students through meals we want to buy as much of it as we can locally. Is better than truck across the country. That's for sure. Give us an idea about the preparation for providing the notes for these summer fun Café's. We have a team of 600+ people that worked in the summer that normally might not work if we didn't have this program for the It also keeps our people in food and nutrition services working throughout the year. Which is really a great thing. It takes a lot of people to make this happen. The funding for this program comes from the government? Yes. The national program done all over the country right now. To the summer food programs help the kids academically when a school starts again? If they are not nutritionally dead, how can you learn? If you're hungry, you cannot learn. That's why we do so many great programs draw the year as well as breakfast in the classroom. We need to get kids served healthy and hydrated in order to learn. It's been proven that it does work. Just wondering what kind of feedback you get from this. What have you heard from kids and their parents about the summer program? Some of the greatest things I hear is your helping my family by cutting my grocery ill by over $100 a month by allowing my kids to eat at any of these 58 locations throughout the summer. It helps families in · because of the cost of living we have to face. I want to thank you for taking time out on this kickoff date the summer fun Café. Ivins "Gary Patel he is director of food and nutrition services presented of unified. Menke. -- Thank you. How many kids in San Diego do you estimate are at risk of going hungry over the summertime? The current estimate of children expensing food insecurity in San Diego County is 160 The current estimate of children expensing food insecurity in San Diego County is 160,000 kids. I food insecurity, I mean they don't have a food at all times to be an active healthy life To give you a sense of 150,000 kids looks like, that would be filling a stadium two times and then another one quarter. As successful as the summer cafés are that we just heard about, your organization would like to see the entire summer food program for students apt up a notch and letting kids really eat at home, not have to go to a café or a library or a base. Tell us about that. We would like to see both. The current sites apt up as you said, would like to see new options added to the summer food service program. Some of the sites are very successful, they offer programming supervision etc. etc. Some of the sites that have more to programming, where parent has to stay while the child eats, the parent is not able to have a meal, that can be an hour or two out of the day. What this entails for the family is every day showing up to access this program. Another thing to do about the programs is they operate purport to eight weeks out of the summer. There many weeks where the services are not available. There are other barriers like transportation, awareness we're finding is a huge challenge. We're launching a pilots in partnership with Gary and his staff at San Diego unified to increase participation in southeastern San Diego. We think if we partner with organizations on the ground in of the committee, churches, nonprofit agencies, places kids go during the summer, that's the time to make the announcement. He mentioned the new legislation. Partly authored by Susan Davis. That would more or less expand electronics and if it so people could have a card and additional money in the summertime because the kids are home and they're not being paid in school pick a The summer meal programs work very well for a lot of families. They offer summer enrichment, they're very important. A lot of families are both parents are working, we need another option. Stopped child summer hunger act of 2015 report -- provide $150 for each family for each child in the family over the summer to purchase additional healthy food -- over the whole summer? Yesterday How would that be accessed? Is put onto an electronic balance transfer card with that benefits. They can spend in local grocery stores. It provides the flexibility of feeding children where they are. When this has been mistreated in other states, it's been wildly successful. It reduces food insecurity over the summer and it's been proven that families are buying more fruits and vegetables with this boost to their food budget over the summer. With this include all the kids who get school mill All those who qualify for free and reduced meals. You also mentioned the fact of looking at this in a doorway Loving for support of this new benefit that would come in the form of more cash during the summer to able to buy kids food in the grocery store. Comes to the cafés opened, how do kids and their family find out about them where they are located? Awareness is one of the biggest challenges. We're working with unified to increase awareness, we are targeting a particular region, trying different strategies. Part will be canvassing to go to school District's doing great job of making sure everybody has a fire at the end of the year, there are announcement about summer deal programs, they do the Robo calling but parents are bombarded with a lot of information at the school year and To have a very tailored calendar with locations, delivered to your door that you can put onto the refrigerator they can see it any given day, where's the closest site we can go to? We hope that will be very helpful. We're doing that this summer. Congress be voting on the expanded benefit -- if it's program anytime soon? There's not a timeline at the moment. It's part of the Child nutrition act reauthorization. We know it's being directed to committee and we will see. We urge people to stay in tune with the topic. Advocacy by individuals, making calls to allege -- legislators work. All of that is incredibly important. But we hear over and over is the calls make a difference. Follow the issue on our website as the hunger.org. Join our newsletter. Constantly send out updates on these issues. I want everyone to know I've been speaking with executive director of the hunger coalition in San Diego. Thank you for coming in and speaking with desperate -- Speaking with us.