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(From the Press Herald) – Lulu the Lunch Wagon moved slowly down the dirt roads of a hilly mobile home park, its bell ringing to call kids outside.
When the van painted with colorful fruits and vegetables pulled to a stop, four children rushed to see volunteer Pat Andres and Chief Deputy Rand Maker of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. Within minutes, they were lugging grocery bags back to the house, where their grandmother, Lisa Schultz, was waiting.
The summer meals delivered by Healthy Lincoln County – four breakfasts and four lunches per child each week – make a huge different for the family grocery budget now that food prices have gone up, Schultz said. The children love the fresh produce and are always excited when Lulu pulls up, she said.
“Thank you for the food,” the kids called out, nearly in unison, as Andres and Maker got back in the van to head to the next neighborhood. They were prepared to hand out 160 meals in 90 minutes.
As state and federal policies change, some summer meal programs have struggled to qualify for funding or to find the flexibility needed to get food to hungry kids this summer.
School nutrition directors and advocates say summer food programs are critical in a state where 1 in 5 children are experiencing food insecurity – the highest childhood hunger rate in New England.
Only 15 out of every 100 children who eat free meals at school are still receiving them in the summer.
“A hungry kid doesn’t stop being hungry just because school is out in June,” said Ellen Dore, Food Service Director for Poland-based RSU 16, which feeds about 200 children a day during the summer.
The USDA’s Summer Food Service Program provides free meals to children 18 and younger at schools, parks and other community locations. Local partners who prepare and serve the meals are reimbursed for food costs. Last summer, more than 698,000 meals were served in Maine, resulting in $2.8 million in federal reimbursement, according to the Maine Department of Education.
“We know lots of families depend on school meals, and we’re trying to bridge that gap when kids aren’t in school,” said Jane McLucas, Director of the Department’s Child Nutrition team.
So why are those kids missing out?
It largely comes down to access to meal sites – a challenge in both rural and urban areas, said Anna Korsen, Policy and Program Director for Full Plates Full Potential, an organization that works to end childhood food insecurity in Maine.
Summer meals programs gets food to thousands of Maine kids, but barriers remain. Each summer, thousands of free meals are handed out to children across Maine, but hunger prevention advocates say more flexibility would allow more families to access the food they need.
“In rural areas, families may live long distances from meal sites and not have transportation to get there,” she said. “In more urban areas, federal restrictions require that children eat at the meal site – a challenge for families when parents are working and kids can’t go out by themselves.”
During the pandemic, the USDA loosened some of the rules, freeing up programs to offer grab-and-go and delivery options that were popular with families and pushed up participation rates.
Those waivers ended a couple of years ago, but the department has since changed the policy to allow rural sites to use grab-and-go systems. Urban programs, like those in Portland, still require on-site meals.
The other issue is qualifying to serve the meals.
When Maine became one of the first states to offer universal free breakfast and lunch to students during the 2022-23 school year, the state saw a 21% increase in the number of students eating school meals.
But the unintended consequence of that switch is that because students automatically qualify, many Maine parents are no longer filling out applications, and therefore potential summer meal sites have less data to use to advocate for federal funding for summer meals.
Those who provide these meals have to meet federal requirements based on poverty guidelines. So without that crucial information, some communities in Maine aren’t eligible to host free summer meals, even though there are children there who need them.
“Parents don’t understand why they still need to fill out a meal benefit application. When we don’t get that information, we don’t qualify for sites,” Dore said. “It’s getting harder and harder to get qualified.”
Before the pandemic, Dore would get 1,100 to 1,200 meal benefit applications each year. Now she said she’s lucky to get 700.
Starting next year, Maine will use SNAP and MaineCare data to determine school meal eligibility, which should make qualifying for summer meal sites easier, Korsen said.
There are 407 summer meal sites across Maine this year run by 101 sponsors, often a school department or community organization.
Some organizers say they would like to set up more locations if the sites could get approved, but that doesn’t guarantee they’d have enough staff and volunteers to serve more meals.
Flexibility in Rural Maine
Only 27 of Maine’s summer meal sites this year are allowed under USDA rules to offer grab-and-go or delivery options. For those programs, the flexibility has been a game-changer.
“It’s a huge advantage to those families who can’t get to those areas. In some areas, they may need to drive 20 miles to get to a site. If (meal sites) can deliver, it increases access to the families that really need it,” McLucas said.
Healthy Lincoln County, an organization focused on improving public health, has been serving summer meals since 2016 and is now one of the largest programs in the state with 22 meal sites. It served over 23,000 meals last summer.
It expands its reach by delivering to nine neighborhoods across the county using Lulu the Lunch Wagon. The van, staffed by volunteers, is loaded up with large coolers of bagged meals made by RSU 40 kitchen staff. Between 40 and 55 children pick up meals each day from Lulu, guaranteeing their access to food, said Larissa Hannan, Healthy Lincoln County’s Director.
But some rural areas aren’t able to do delivery.
In Baileyville, a town of 1,300 in Washington County where 1 in 4 children are food insecure (the highest rate in Maine), the meals are served at the school, either for dine-in or grab-and-go.
About 60% of students would qualify for free or reduced school meals, said Mike Emery, Food Service Manager at Woodland Junior-Senior High School.
In July, the school set a record of 45 children served in one day. Emery is sure that number would be even higher if he had the money and manpower to bring meals to neighborhoods.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if we jumped up to 100 a day if we could deliver,” he said.
“A lot of families in this little area don’t have the extra money to feed their children when school isn’t in normal session,” Emery added. “This helps the kids get what they need for a meal and get a full belly.”
Linda Hamilton, Food Services Director for Greenville Consolidated School in Piscataquis County, said she hopes to resume meal deliveries sometime soon. Right now, the program there is serving about 30 kids each day in the cafeteria.
She credits much of that success to being in a town small enough that families feel safe allowing their kids to walk or bike to school for meals.
But participation numbers dropped a bit during the pandemic, and the school had to stop bringing meals around town.
“We’ll get there again,” she said.
Meal Site Challenges
In Kittery, the school department is running its summer program out of the Kittery Community Center, where about 100 campers get lunch every day. It also has a remote site in a military housing complex that serves up to 40 kids a day, said Nutrition Director Wendy Collins.
During the school year, the vast majority of students – up to 82% at the primary school – eat school lunch. To engage more kids during summer, the district is using a $10,000 grant from Full Plates Full Potential to give out backpacks, offer special treats and do outreach.
But Collins knows she could reach more kids if she had the same flexibility as rural programs.
“When parents could come and pick up meals, we had double the participation,” she said.
Transportation can be a challenge for summer meal programs in the city. There are always children who are old enough to be home while their parents work but too young to go out by themselves. Those kids are missing out on meals that would be very helpful for their families, said Korsen, from Full Plates Full Potential.
In Portland, some meal sites are near major roads or are not easy to get to, especially when older children are bringing their younger siblings along, said Dawn Hilton, Director of Food Services for Portland Public Schools.
The eleven summer meal sites in Portland largely revolve around summer programs at the school and local Boys & Girls Club locations. Meals are also served at the Munjoy South playground, study center at Kennedy Park and at the North Deering Gardens housing complex.
“I’m sure parents would prefer to be able to do grab-and-go, especially when it’s really hot and humid,” Hilton said. “Sometimes it’s just easier to grab that meal and go home to enjoy in more of a family setting.”
‘A Huge Help’
Regardless of how the kids are getting summer meals, families say they help offset rising food prices.
At Lulu the Lunch Wagon’s first stop of the day on a recent Wednesday, Colleen Bissey said the option to grab food for her five nieces and nephews makes a “huge difference” for her family. She watches the kids during the day, and the cost to feed them is a strain on her grocery budget.
In another neighborhood, Andrew Hampton followed his granddaughter, 7-year-old Avri Jones and 6-year-old son Kainen, out to meet Lulu.
“It’s a huge help on the weeks when I’m waiting for my paycheck,” Hampton said.
At an apartment complex across town, the Trahan family – 7-year-old Angel, 11-year-old Will and Lily, 13 – waited with their mother, Amy. The family wouldn’t qualify for the meals based on income, but the food has helped stretch their grocery budget during the summer, Amy Trahan said.
Trahan said they also participate to help make sure the program continues because it is so critical for others who need help. She often talks about the meals to people she meets to help spread the word. It’s a bonus that her children get excited about trying new healthy foods, she said.
“It’s kind of like Christmas every time we visit Lulu the Lunch Wagon,” she said.