Summer Feeding in New Haven for Children is FREE

Hungry Kids and the Summer unfortunately go hand in hand. Not ALL children looking forward to the school year being finished. Despite not having to cram for tests, do homework and the ability to sleep late in the morning, summertime also opens up a severe problem to hungry children. LACK OF FOOD.

According to a report in May 2009 by Feeding America, hunger in Connecticut average 105,806 (13%) children under 18 years of age are food insecure. This number is staggering but does not surprise me because 24.2% of people in New Haven live below the poverty line and 18.1% of households with children in Hartford have experienced food hardship between 2008-2009. (The national average household income of a family living below the poverty line is less than $21,834 per year!).

In New Haven we offer 36 open sites, 7 closed sites and this year we will be feeding Hamden children in 4 of their schools, all closed sites. An open site is a site that any child 18 and under can go to receive a free breakfast or lunch. A closed site is a site where only the children enrolled in a summer program there have access to the meals. Summer meals in New Haven and Hamden starts 7/6/10 and ends 8/6/10.

For a list of the site locations for New Haven and Hamden CLICK HERE. For the list of locations throughout the state click here.

Do you know a location in New Haven that has a large percentage of children without a meal site nearby? Email me at timothy.cipriano@new-haven.k12.ct.us and we will check on the eligibility requirements to see if we can open the site to feed these children. Please email us the street address for the potential site.

Because many school disticts in CT do not offer summer meals to children the demand for food from Food Banks rises significantly. In the map below the light blue denotes the towns with Summer Feeding Programs in 2009; the white area of the map are the areas with ZERO summer meals. Click on the picture for a full view.