USDA looks to get more meals to kids in summer

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FOOD_AND_FARM_SUMMER_LUNCH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-14-08-33-17

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Food can be scarce around the Mendoza household during the summer. School food service worker Alina Mendoza loses most of her hours and pay at the same time her daughter stops getting free meals at school.

That's why Mendoza was excited this summer when a federal grant provided money for her daughter and other children to pick up backpacks full of food each Friday from a local elementary school.

The grant was part of $6.3 million the U.S. Department of Agriculture spent this year to try to find new ways of making sure children from low-income families get enough to eat during the summer. Of the 20.6 million children nationwide who receive free or reduced-price lunches, less than one in five get meals when school lets out, according to the USDA.

The agency pays schools, churches and other nonprofits to serve summer meals to children in low-income neighborhoods, but that doesn't always work because many children don't have a way to get there each day, said Crystal FitzSimons, who overseas and studies summer nutrition programs for the anti-hunger nonprofit Food Research and Action Center. In other cases, the USDA hasn't been able to find groups willing to run summer meal programs.

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