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Senate Agriculture Committee
extends pilot summer lunch program for kids to Oregon
Wyden and Smith urged committee to increase
summer availability of food to children who received free or reduced-price
meals during the school year
May 20, 2004
Washington, D.C. – At
the request of U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Gordon Smith
(R-Ore.), the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee has extended the
Lugar Summer Food Pilot Program to include Oregon. The pilot program
increases the availability of food to children who received free
or reduced-priced meals during the school year but who cannot
access such meals during the summer months.
“We can’t allow
hungry children to slip through the cracks for even a couple of
months,” Wyden said. “With this action, Oregon’s
hunger advocates will be able to focus more resources on feeding
kids who otherwise might have empty stomachs during the summer.”
“No one should go hungry,
least of all children who need proper nutrition for the healthy
development of their young minds and bodies,” said Smith.
“This program will allow children to enjoy their summers
instead of worrying where their next meal will come from.”
During the 2002-03 school year,
almost 165,000 Oregon children received free and reduced-price
lunch each day through the National School Lunch Program. These
children still need the meals during the summer, but in July 2002
only 26,987 Oregon children participated in summer nutrition programs.
The Lugar pilot simplifies the
way school districts offer the Summer Food Service Program by
streamlining paperwork and other administrative requirements.
Because administration and overhead are often the biggest costs
for food programs, this streamlining allows hunger advocates to
focus their scarce resources on providing food to the hungry.
The pilot also allows non-profits to participate in this simplified
program, bringing these groups to bear in areas where schools
can’t provide access to summertime meals (for example, in
rural areas where transportation costs may be too high).
In states covered by the pilot
program there has been at least a 9 percent increase in summer
food program participation while states not covered by the pilot
are still seeing decreases. With the addition of Oregon to the
pilot program, thousands of additional children could be fed during
the summer months.
Extending the Lugar Summer Food
Pilot Program has been a top priority of Oregon hunger advocates,
including the Oregon Food Bank, Food for Lane County, and the
Oregon Hunger Relief Task Force.
“Right now, we're only
reaching about 18 percent of the eligible children in Oregon,
and we can do better,” said Patti Whitney-Wise, Executive
Director of the Task Force. “These changes will help meal
program staff spend less time completing paperwork and more time
doing what they do best: serving hungry children. We'd really
like to thank Senators Smith and Wyden for all their hard work.”
Wyden and Smith asked for the
program extension in a May 5 letter to the Agriculture Committee,
which agreed to include Oregon in the pilot program during markup
of the Child Nutrition Act this week.
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