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The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) offers children the opportunity to obtain free, nourishing meals during the summer months. Local organizations that sponsor the SFSP provide an important service to their communities. Frequently, food pantries and soup kitchens report increased demand in the summer, due to the number of children that receive free and reduced-price school meals who lose that benefit when school is out. Studies have indicated that children who do not receive proper nutrition in the summer, return to school in the fall with lowered learning capacities.

The SFSP was established in 1968 and is operated at the federal level by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which contracts with the Connecticut State Department of Education to administer the SFSP through local approved public or private nonprofit sponsoring organizations. Sponsors receive reimbursement to cover the administrative and operating costs of preparing and serving free meals meeting USDA meal guidelines to children at eligible food service sites.

In 2002, the USDA implemented a new waiver, the Seamless Summer Waiver, which made it easier for school lunch sponsors to administer the SFSP. With the Waiver, school systems that already participate in the school meals program have the ability to become SFSP sponsors without going through the full application and paperwork process. The USDA created the new system with the hope of attracting new sponsors to the program. "Traditional" SFSP sites continue to operate in the same manner as before.

In the summer of 2004, there were 39 sponsors throughout Connecticut, operating 356 sites with an average daily attendance of 31,036 children. These figures include both traditional and waiver sponsors. Connecticut's SFSP is reaching only about 25% of children who are eligible for free and reduced-price school meals due to a lack of sponsors, sites, and program awareness. The Seamless Waiver made it possible for more schools to offer the program, but has not been successful in attracting sponsors in towns that were not already served by the SFSP. This means that children in several small and medium-sized towns that have shown an increase in the number of residents living below the poverty are not being served by the SFSP.

To be eligible to sponsor SFSP, every potential organization must meet certain requirements. They must be:

• a public or nonprofit school;
• a public or private nonprofit residential camp, National Youth Sports Program, or Upward Bound program;
• a unit of local, county, municipal, State or Federal government;
• a private nonprofit organization, including community action agencies. These organizations may be limited as to location, number of sites and number of participants.

To be eligible to participate in the SFSP, children must be 18 years of age and under. Any person over 18 who is physically or mentally disabled and who attends a school program is also eligible. Once a site is determined eligible, all children, regardless of family income, who attend the program site may receive free meals. Sponsors may operate the SFSP at one or more "open" or "enrolled" sites. Open sites serve children in geographical areas where 50 percent or more of the local children are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals. School data or census tract data can be used to determine whether the area that will be served is eligible. Enrolled sites serve children in sites where 50 percent or more of the children enrolled can be documented to qualify for free or reduced-price school meals (family income up to 185 percent of poverty).

Most SFSP sites are open between late-June and mid-August. To find out how to become a sponsor or to host a site, contact the State Department of Education at (860) 807-2070. To find the nearest open SFSP site, call Infoline 2-1-1.