Free summer meals through No Kid Hungry

Many children rely on school meals for nourishment, but what happens when school is out? Summer can be a time of hunger for kids, especially those who receive free or discounted meals at school. No Kid Hungry recognized this problem, and made a huge move to solve it. No Kid Hungry supports free summer meal programs provided by schools and community groups across the nation. Realizing that it can be hard to spread the word about free summer meals, No Kid Hungry created a text line to help people find free meals by texting FOOD for a response in English or COMIDA for a response in Spanish to 877-877. An automatic text will come back asking for an address or zip code. Once that information is provided, another text is sent with nearby locations offering free summer meals for kids. It’s a fast and easy step with a big impact. There is also a map version of the meal locator here on the USDA website. We tried both ways to locate meal sites near HMC Farms, and were surprised to learn that there are 14 different locations fewer than 10 miles from our office – 2 of which were only half a mile away!

Read more about summer meal programs in this blog post from No Kid Hungry.