On October 29, No Kid Hungry brought together leaders from the corporate, philanthropic, media, culinary and policy worlds to meet with Members of Congress and staff on Capitol Hill. These advocates are part of No Kid Hungry’s Leadership Council and together they urged Congress to do more to help hungry kids during the summer months.
You might be wondering why, in the middle of autumn, these advocates are talking about summer meals. That’s because the most common barriers children and families face in accessing summer meals can only be solved through legislation. And right now, Congress is considering just that. It’s called Child Nutrition Reauthorization, or CNR for short, and it’s how Congress makes changes to the laws that govern the national summer meals program.
For kids who rely on free school meals, summer can be the hungriest time of year. In fact, 6 out of 7 hungry kids don’t get the summer meals they need. But CNR gives lawmakers a chance to enact policies that create a more flexible summer meals program that reaches hungry kids. Through innovative approaches like Summer EBT, which gives a monthly benefit on a debit card for low-income families to purchase food, we can make sure more kids are getting the nutrition they need year round, no matter where they live.
The CNR process is one of the best opportunities we have to feed more kids in the summertime. Join us in telling Congress to take action on Child Nutrition Reauthorization.
