Kids’ summer food programs extended through December

Just days after indicating that the nation’s summer-meal program for children would wind down — despite millions of students not yet returning to their school buildings — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that the department will extend the effort through the end of the year.

Advocates for low-income families had been urging the federal government to allow the child-nutrition programs to keep operating under waivers issued during the COVID-19 outbreak that modified the typical requirements.

“We know there was a great deal of pressure from a lot of factions,” Judy Mobley, president and CEO of the Columbus-based Children’s Hunger Alliance, said Tuesday.

The organization is among several across the country that dramatically ramped up when schools closed this spring so poor children still would have access to nutritious meals during the pandemic.

Mobley said the Alliance worked with school districts and other organizations to distribute more than a million federally funded meals in Ohio, which are free to the families who receive them.

The Dispatch reported last week that the waivers were set to end on Aug. 31. In a letter to Virginia Congressman Robert C. Scott, who had asked for the summer-meal rules to continue throughout the 2020-21school year, Perdue said there were already “opportunities for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and weekend meals for children in need.”

But on Monday, Perdue said summermeal operators can keep serving free meals until Dec. 31, a move he called “unprecedented” and necessary to ensure that children have meals no matter the situation with their schools or families.

“These waivers will ensure every hungry child in the city of Cleveland has access to healthy school meals, while eliminating the burdensome, time consuming process of verifying and documenting enrollment,” Chris

Burkhardt, executive director of school nutrition for the Cleveland school district, said in a USDA news release.

The last-minute reauthorization is good news, Mobley said, but it has left organizations scrambling.

“The timing is less than ideal; we had deadlines to meet by the end of the month so that we could be at as many sites as possible,” she said. “But it’s a good problem to have.” rprice@dispatch.com @Ritaprice