Download My Summer Car Mobile
Faye Woodson
This summer, The Central Kitchen is distributing grocery boxes through our Mobile Food Pantry on a first come, first served basis to any Sacramento community member, every Monday through Friday, from July 5 through August 18 between 8 am and 9:30 am.
The purpose of this memorandum is to provide guidance on the use of the mobile feeding model in the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and the Seamless Summer Option (SSO) of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). This memorandum supersedes SFSP 17-1999: Mobile Feeding Sites in Rural Areas, Feb. 12, 1999.
Traditionally, sites are located at schools, playgrounds, parks, churches, community buildings, or other similar places. In rural areas, where children may live in isolated locations, access to meal service sites operated by schools, parks and recreation departments, and private nonprofit organizations is often limited. In urban areas, violence and traffic safety concerns are examples of issues that may limit viable options for site locations. In these cases, mobile feeding may provide the flexibility sponsors need to reach children who do not have access to more traditional sites.
In mobile feeding, the sponsor delivers meals to an area using a route with a series of stops at approved sites in the community. The meal service must take place on approved days and the sponsor must serve reimbursable meals during approved service times.
Sponsors should consult with their state agency to ensure specific costs associated with operating mobile sites are allowable. If partners donate money for the cost of operating the vehicle, these funds must be tracked and reported separately from USDA program funds.
Sponsors are required to make arrangements for meal service operations during periods of inclement weather [7 CFR 225.6(c)(2)(D)]. Sponsors of mobile sites should make a reasonable effort to inform children of contingency plans to deal with extreme weather conditions, such as thunderstorms and excessive heat, particularly if meal services would be canceled. In addition, sponsors operating traditional sites may consider mobile feeding as an option when they develop their contingency plans.
Building partnerships and seeking out additional funding sources can increase the ability of sponsors to successfully use mobile feeding. Additional sources of income that support the meal programs must be tracked and reported separately from program funds.
Communities have utilized a variety of approaches to control costs when implementing mobile feeding. To reduce fuel costs, for example, some organizations park mobile feeding buses in the communities, near the feeding sites they serve. They use just one van to deliver meals, one or two times a week, from a central kitchen and the meals are kept in donated cold storage facilities near each bus. As sponsors work with community partners, they can identify additional approaches that will work best for their meal service programs.
Funding opportunities also may be available to support mobile feeding effort, through programs administered by USDA Rural Development agencies and the Housing and Urban Development (HUD), state programs that support housing and economic development, and foundations and other private sources. These funding sources will often have a specific focus. Some will fund only capital expenditures, whereas others may provide funding for operating costs.
MPRD invites your little one out to their Summer Camps June 6, through July 29, 2022, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the following community centers, Dotch, Hillsdale, Seals, and Sullivan. Structured camps will have three main themes: Arts and Culture, Sports and Fitness, Educational and STEM. There is a one-time $25 registration fee and Camp weekly fee cost is $25 per camper. Sign up weekly, first come first served. Post camp care will also be offered 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. for $5 a day or $20 a week. To register or learn more information visit -rec/news/mprdkids-summer-camp-information/
District 87 staff and volunteers administered two surveys on separate days at the mobile feeding sites using an iPad and verballing asking the children the questions. The first survey assessed past participation in the SFSP. The second survey focused on current likes and dislikes of the program for future program improvements.
A 21.6% increase in meals served was recorded compared to the 2017 summer. More than 60% of participants (n=38) had never attended a SFSP feeding site before. Transportation to a site was the main barrier identified for 22% of the children who had never participated and 38% of children reported that the convenience of the mobile feeding unit was the best part about it.
Every child that participated requested that the mobile feeding unit return in future summers. SFSP mobile feeding units can be a viable and effective way to increase participation and provide children with the nutrition they need during summer months or on remote learning days.
Insufficient access to food for children during the summer has been a topic of concern for many years with the reported percentage of households with children that are food insecure increasing from 4% during January through May to 5.5% during summer months (Huang, Kim, & Barnidge, 2015). As defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), food insecurity is a household that is uncertain or unable to provide adequate food to meet the needs of all household members based on lack of money or resources (Coleman-Jensen, Gregory, & Rabbitt, 2018a). Research shows 298,000 households in the United States reported having one or more children experience substantial reductions in food intake (Coleman-Jensen, Rabbitt, Gregory, & Singh, 2018b). Given the unprecedented economic situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical to examine programs such as school nutrition programs to ensure that the nutritional needs of all children are met. Researchers recommend strategizing how, when, and where nutritional support is provided to children (Dunn, Kenney, Fleischhacker, & Bleich, 2020).
By identifying barriers to participation, the SFSP can help address childhood food insecurity and hunger in the summer months. Transportation to summer feeding sites has been identified as the largest barrier to participation in SFSP, especially in rural areas (Wauchope, & Stracuzzi, 2010) with issues such as lack of transportation for children, long travel distances, high cost of gas and maintenance, and lack of options for transporting meals noted. In 2015, the USDA began promoting mobile feeding as a solution to this barrier (USDA, 2015). The USDA encouraged agencies serving meals to take the food to children with provision of resources to map transport routes, receive additional funding, and collaborate with other community resources. However, limited research has been conducted on the effectiveness of mobile feeding units, and of the SFSP in general.
The purpose of this case study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a summer mobile feeding unit in one Midwestern community and its ability to reach a new population of children, thus helping to lessen the impact of food insecurity. The research questions that guided this study included: 1) Does the mobile feeding unit allow the SFSP to feed children who otherwise would not attend a feeding site? 2) In this community, is transportation a barrier for children to attend a SFSP feeding site? 3) Should mobile feeding be continued in future years and if so, what improvements could be implemented to better serve children?
During the summer of 2018, District 87 in Bloomington, Illinois, offered a mobile feeding unit as part of their SFSP for the first time. The intent was to provide meals to those children who may not have participated in the SFSP in the past due to lack of transportation or other resources. As a sponsor, District 87 offered free meals to children each weekday for ten weeks in the summer months. With the exclusion of Independence Day, lunch was served a total of 49 days.
District 87 children previously had access to meals at six summer feeding sites, including four elementary schools, a church, and the Boys & Girls Club (referred to as Sites A, B, C, D, E, and F; respectively). All prior feeding sites continued to serve meals in 2018 with the addition of one stationary site (Site G) and three new mobile feeding sites (Sites H, I, and J). Three apartment complexes, all part of the local housing authority whose mission is to provide quality affordable housing to low- and moderate-income families, were chosen as stops for the mobile feeding unit because these were deemed the best locations to reach children (Housing Authority of the City of Bloomington, Illinois, 2019). District 87 employees drove a van equipped with prepared lunches to Sites H, I, and J to offer grab-and-go meals. The mobile feeding unit arrived at each location at approximately the same time each day and stayed for 30 minutes. Under the guidelines of the SFSP, children 18 years and younger could receive a meal and adults could purchase a meal for $3.00.
During the summer of 2018, District 87 served a total of 18,658 lunches to children 18 and younger. This was a 27.6% increase from the number of meals served in the summer of 2017 (n = 14,623). According to data from USDA, the state of Illinois had a 5.4% decline in summer meal participation between 2017 and 2018 (USDA, 2019), so this outcome for District 87 is positive. District 87 served an average of 380.78 lunches each day meals were offered. This was the highest average observed since 2015, and 141 more meals per day than the 239.65 served in 2016 in the district when participation dropped state-wide to the lowest rates noted in the last five years.
Throughout the summer of 2018, the three new mobile feeding sites served 2,473 lunches (50.33 average meals per day). The meals at these three feeding sites contributed to 13% of all meals served by the district during the summer. Peak participation was observed in July (51.86 average meals served per day), with similar numbers noted in June (49.25) and August (49.88). More consistency in the number of meals served daily was tracked at the mobile feeding sites compared with any other feeding site.
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