At the Carver Community Center in the small town of Chillicothe in south central Ohio, kids pull on adult-sized latex gloves and gather around cook Soundra Thompson. As they help her serve the chicken nuggets, hash browns and vegetables, they talk about nutrition and serving size. How much is enough? What makes a complete meal?

Children come to Carver for an after-school youth development program, or in summer for camp. They get homework help and a chance to play and learn. They also get food: snacks and supper after school and breakfast, lunch and snacks in the summer. Some are from low-income families, others are not; but the food is free for all of them.

Most of Carver’s budget comes from grants. Only about nine percent comes from federal child nutrition program funds. But while the contribution is small in percentage terms, the food it funds is essential.

“Our kids are so very hungry. You want to feed them, that’s the basic necessity. Hungry children can’t learn and they can’t function,” says Mary McCord, who directs the center.

Hungry Kids Can’t Learn
Anyone who has spent time with children knows that hunger can disrupt even the best-laid plans, making it hard for kids to concentrate, learn or sit still. Recurring hunger can impede growth and development. Along with schools, community programs like Carver are a critical part of the national effort to combat childhood hunger.

Millions of kids are helped by the five major federal child nutrition programs up for Congressional reauthorization in 2003:

• The School Lunch program began in 1946. All students at participating schools are guaranteed a nutritious lunch. Based on family income, some students qualify for free or reduced-price meals (40 cents or less). Schools are reimbursed a maximum of $2.14 for each free or reduced meal. Of the 28 million kids served on a typical day, 16 million get free or reduced-price meals.
• The School Breakfast program provides one-fourth or more of the recommended daily amounts of key nutrients to nearly 8 million kids a year (Learn more about the school breakfast program in our profile).
• The Summer Food Service program makes sure kids don’t go hungry when school is out. It served more than 2 million kids in 2001.
• The Child and Adult Care Food program (CACFP), reimburses in-home or center-based child care providers and after-school programs for the nutritious snacks and meals they give 2.5 million kids each day. CACFP is the program that the Carver Center participates in.
• WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) gives food, health care and nutrition counseling to 7.2 million pregnant women, infants, and kids every month.

School lunch is a permanent program; Congress doesn’t need to reauthorize it in order for it to continue. But Congress can cut funds or change eligibility procedures and reimbursement amounts, reducing the number of kids who benefit. Each of the other programs must be re-approved by Congress.

Like many who work with vulnerable children, Mary McCord focuses on meeting day-to-day demands, not on debates and wrangling in Washington, DC. But advocates warn that McCord—and anyone concerned about children’s well-being—should be paying attention to what’s happening on Capitol Hill.

The House of Representatives has proposed cutting close to $6 billion in spending from these programs over the next 10 years. The Senate has not proposed cuts but neither has it approved the increases that advocates and many school officials recommend.

“You don’t want to damage a program started in 1946 and that provides one-third to half of children’s nutrients per day. You don’t want to use these kids as guinea pigs,” says Lynn Parker, director of child nutrition programs and policy with the Food Research Action Center (FRAC), a national organization working to improve anti-hunger policies.

FRAC is pushing Congress to not only preserve these programs during reauthorization, but improve them.

Advocates to Congress: Don’t Shortchange the Kids
On March 26, FRAC president Jim Weill testified before Congress, requesting more funding for programs and urging lawmakers to increase access and decrease the bureaucratic requirements that can slow participation.

“The child nutrition programs are just about the most effective federal investments that exist,” Weill told Congress. Careful reauthorization can make them even more successful at what they’re already doing—not just fighting hunger but improving prenatal care and child nutrition, health and development and improving school performance, he said.

Nutrition programs can also play a role in combating rising childhood obesity rates. Several recent studies show that low-income children enrolled in these programs have healthier diets than their counterparts who don’t participate. And according to the USDA, 95 percent of summer food sites provide outdoor or other rigorous activities—helping kids avoid sedentary habits like watching television or playing video games.

The biggest challenges for reauthorization, says Parker, are securing enough funding and making sure all children who need food can access it.

That means decreasing the paperwork required of participating programs and schools, and helping more schools and families enroll. Yearlong child care and preschool programs like Head Start have to cobble together school lunch, CACFP and summer food program funds, each with different forms and eligibility and reimbursement rules.

It also means expanding the supplementary food programs. More than five million parents work nights, evenings or irregular schedules that leave kids to fend for themselves—yet only seven states allow schools and community organizations to be reimbursed for suppers they serve.

McCord says children visiting the Carver center need more than a snack in the evening. “Some kids leave here and go to other programs, and they’re gone from their house until 9:00 or 10:00 at night, so we feel it’s important for them to have a meal. That’s what we’re going to start to do,” says McCord.

Meals and snacks served to many of the kids in homeless shelters aren't reimbursed under current regulations: using CACFP, the government reimburses shelters only for food served to children aged 12 or younger. FRAC's Jim Weill has urged Congress to raise the age to 18.

Hunger Doesn’t Take Summers Off
The summer food program is one that advocates say needs more resources, not fewer. Right now, says Parker, only about one in five kids who get free or reduced-price lunches get free summer meals. Advocates are calling for changes in the program that would increase participation.

One way would be to redefine the way school districts are deemed eligible for summer food program funding. Right now, if 50 percent of children in a school district qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, then all children can qualify for summer feeding at an approved distribution site. Chillicothe, where the Carver Center is located, qualifies. But other areas, particularly rural ones, may just miss the mark.

FRAC has asked Congress to change the standard so that districts where 40 percent of children qualify for free or reduced-price lunches will be eligible for summer feeding. That’s in line with the standard used by other federal programs, like Title I and the 21st Century Learning Centers after-school fund.

Defending Against a Charge of “Waste”
Recent controversy has not shifted advocates’ calls for bigger and better nutrition programs. In 2002, the USDA released a study indicating that as many as one in five children receiving free lunch may not be eligible because family income is too high, resulting in what it called “a billion dollars of waste.”

Critics argue that the USDA study was flawed, using different data from different years to reach its estimates. The government has not officially proposed changes to the eligibility verification system, but some lawmakers recommend requiring parents to provide more proof of income, and schools to perform more comprehensive checks.

FRAC’s Lynn Parker says stricter requirements could hurt kids, and create an administrative nightmare. “We are saying that, number one, we don’t really know whether the problem is as large or even as significant as reported. The data is difficult to interpret. We also know that the solutions suggested may be harmful, that one to two million children may drop out as a result of some of these solutions.”

As Congress debates the rules and requirements—and considers potential cuts in funding—Ohio mother Dorothy Beverly says she wants to remind elected officials that real families hang in the balance. “They need to realize that we are here everyday trying to work and make ends meet. We don’t need the rug pulled out from under our feet, and it seems like every time you walk, it’s slipping more and more.”

She and her husband rely on Carver Community Center to help feed their children each day. Her message to Congress is simple, she says: “Please do not cut this. It is much needed.”

Resources:

• Background and Fast Facts on School Breakfast
• See how your state's school breakfast program measures up with our Interactive Map.
• Read a profile on School Breakfast.
• Take action at the Food Research Action Center

Caitlin Johnson is a writer at Connect for Kids.