Work by Matthew Stone

July 20, 2009

AUGUSTA — Laura Foss has made her way to Calumet Playground on Northern Avenue most days this summer with six children in tow — her two daughters and four others from her Augusta neighborhood.

"I grab everyone who wants to come up for lunch," she said.

At 12:15 p.m. each weekday, an Augusta School Department van arrives at the park, children line up and employees Rob Flannery and Bob Duplessis unload bagged lunches from coolers. The waiting children often number more than 20.

The bagged meals are free — the summer extension of the federally funded National School Lunch Program.

"I'm just glad they do this," Foss said Tuesday as children around her drank milk and ate chicken salad wraps, cucumber slices, bananas and animal crackers.

With school out for the summer, parents of children who receive free or reduced-price meals at school find themselves in a quandary. With no school to serve breakfast or lunch, low-income parents have to dig deeper into their pockets to feed their children.

"In the summertime, it's harder because they don't increase your food stamps ... and you have to have more meals," Foss said.

Free lunches, such as the federally funded meals the Augusta schools offer through a summer food-service program, help take the edge off summer hunger.

But a federal law that limits where summer food program sponsors, such as school districts, nonprofit organizations and other government agencies, can set up feeding sites often keeps meals from reaching a broad swath of eligible children, food-service directors and hunger-prevention advocates say.

Just 15.5 percent of Maine children eligible for free summer meals received them in July 2008, according to the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C., organization focused on hunger prevention. The percentage is about the same as a year earlier, when the state reached 15.4 percent of eligible children.

Maine's track record of feeding children in need during the summer months is slightly below average in the United States. Nationwide, 17.3 percent of children eligible for free meals received them in July 2008, and Maine has ranked 26th for the past two years in Food Research and Action Center surveys.

Summer food-service program sponsors can set up feeding sites in areas where more than half the children qualify for free and reduced-price meals, and distribute the food to any child who shows up.

Program administrators need to count the number of meals they distribute and adhere to federal nutrition regulations in order to receive a federal reimbursement.

If a sponsor wants to open a feeding site in an area where fewer than 50 percent of children qualify for free or reduced-price meals, the sponsor needs proof that a participating child qualifies for free or reduced-price meals before that child can receive a meal.

"It becomes a lot of extra work and a more costly program when you have to have applications filled out and proof of income," said Barbara Bonnell, food-services director for Kennebec Valley Consolidated Schools, which serves Vassalboro, Waterville and Winslow students.

Bonnell oversees a growing summer food-service program in Waterville, where 56 percent of the 1,900 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

At seven locations throughout that city, the school district in 2008 served 150 to 170 meals daily, Bonnell said.

"This year, we're pushing 500," she said.

Bonnell said she sees enough need that she plans to open a site to serve breakfast next year. "We're building the program a little each year," she said.

While Waterville children have access to free meals, the school district has set up no feeding sites in Vassalboro, where 38 percent of children qualify for federally subsidized meals; or Winslow, where 34 percent qualify.

"Maybe, in a year, we'll start a site in each one of those towns and see if it works," Bonnell said.

For the time being, however, where "we have the qualifying numbers, we're taking advantage of it as much as possible," she said.

The 50 percent threshold for summer food sites has been in effect since 1981, when it was raised from 33 percent. From 1981 to 1982, according to the Food Research and Action Center, summer food-service program participation dropped by 500,000 children.

Efforts are under way in Maine to identify more summer food-service program sponsors, and to encourage existing sponsors to open additional feeding sites.

Maine children this summer can find free meals at 161 locations, up from 140 in 2008, according to state data.

"We're increasing who we're reaching," said Gail Lombardi, who oversees summer food-service programs for the Maine Department of Education.

But the feeding sites are concentrated largely in the more densely populated areas where more than half of children qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

The 50 percent threshold isn't the summer food program's sole complicating factor, Lombardi said.

"When you're looking at cities, even, we're probably not reaching all of the children," she said. "But when you're looking at rural areas, the major barrier to overcome is the transportation issue. In the cities, it's having enough sites where children can easily walk to."

In Augusta, this summer marks the first in which public schools have dispatched a van to city playgrounds to distribute meals, school nutrition director Barbara Nichols said.

The playgrounds' neighbor schools are where more than 50 percent of children qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

Altogether, Nichols said, the School Department has served 300 meals daily this summer.

But the eligible population is closer to 1,300. During the academic year, 53 percent of Augusta's 2,500 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, according to data the school system filed with the Maine Department of Education.

"I know the need is out there," Nichols said.

As the U.S. Senate considers a reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Program later this year, lawmakers will consider how to expand the reach of the federal summer food-service program, said Kevin Kelley, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The U.S. Senate's Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee plans to consider changing the 50 percent qualifying threshold, he said. Collins would support lowering it, Kelley said.

"She has asked her agriculture staff to work with the Senate committee, and supports Congress' efforts to look for ways to help more families qualify," he said.

Matthew Stone — 623-3811, ext. 435
mstone@centralmaine.com