Children and Hunger: The District of Columbia Sets a National Example

Photo by USDA.gov

Summer vacation for many children means catching a break from early mornings, homework, and schedules. It also means that school cafeterias close, often a reliable place for children to get a good meal. For families struggling financially, this can mean the difference between children who eat one nutritious meal every day or going without. 

In Washington, DC, where nearly one in five residents live in poverty, making sure that kids get fed when they go to school, and especially when they don’t, is a priority for District government. As a result, for the last five years, the District of Columbia has ranked first in the U.S. for reaching the highest percentage of low-income children through the federally funded D.C. Free Summer Meals program. Kids can eat a meal at their local community centers, schools, faith-based organizations, or recreation centers.  

It was the “rundown, crime-ridden” Edgewood Terrace neighborhood in northeast Washington, DC, that got Rev. Donald Robinson’s attention in 1991. The neighborhood, he said, was full of kids who were poorly schooled, lived in neglected housing and were just plain hungry. Rev. Robinson, 71, a Universalist Unitarian minister, recognized the wasted opportunities that these children represented, having grown up poor and hungry himself in rural West Virginia.

“I wanted children to compete academically with any child in DC and in the world,” said Rev. Robinson.

So, he bought snacks. And organized the Beacon House Community Center, a place to congregate. When the Center first began, he said, kids didn’t come for help with their homework. They came to eat. Soon enough, Beacon House began to provide tutoring and mentoring along with food. This summer, nearly 20 years later, Beacon House is serving more than 175 kids every day—breakfast, lunch, snacks—as part of summer camp and the DC Free Summer Meals program.

Funded through the USDA Child Nutrition Act, the national Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) ensures that American children have access to nutritious meals during the summer. The program began in 1968 and initially served nearly 100,000 children at 1,200 sites around the country. By 2007, 2.8 million low-income children had received summer meals through the program. 

The Child Nutrition Act, which is up for reauthorization, funds child nutrition programs that include the summer meals program, School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs, the Afterschool Snack and Meal Program, the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and others.

Last year, the District of Columbia delivered free summer meals to kids at 270 sites. This summer, it is anticipated that more than 300 sites will provide summer meals for children. Food, of course, is a good excuse to provide other things that nourish the body and mind including education, physical fitness and mentoring for neighborhood children. 

Christi Dorsey grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and is a product of the summer meals program. During the summer, she said, without telling her parents, she’d head over to the local public school and eat lunch with her friends. There was no stigma attached, she said, because lots of other kids were there too.

“I would ride my bike to PS272, grab a carton of milk, a sandwich, and fresh fruit for free. My friends and I all received the same meal, and most of all, it was fun.”

Dorsey works for the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) as a program specialist. OSSE administers the DC Free Summer Meals Program. A graduate of Columbia and Johns Hopkins Universities, she was recently honored by former President Bill Clinton for her work to integrate healthy initiatives into Maryland public schools.

Things have changed a great deal, said Rev. Robinson, in the last 20 years since he began Beacon House. Edgewood Terrace is becoming a less affordable neighborhood and the issues of poverty, housing, and hunger that plagued the community are being replaced by costly housing. Even so, he said, the issues of hunger and poverty are not limited to children of color or inner city neighborhoods. Across the country, he said, many families with children are going without.

“These problems are not just in the city, they are in rural and suburban areas,” he said. “There are a lot of children in the suburbs who go to school hungry. When you look at the world today, a lot of people who were in the middle class, they are beginning to understand what hunger is like. They are not in this situation because they want to be, but because they have to be.”