With food stamp enrollment at a record high in Illinois, the Greater Chicago Food Depository is expanding its programs to reach the children of low-income families that struggle the most with hunger in the summer months.
Starting Monday, the first day of summer break for Chicago Public Schools, the depository will send two vans with sandwiches and crackers to community gatherings and Chicago Park District day-camps at lunchtime in Chicago Heights and Little Village/Lawndale–two communities with the highest number of under-served children, according to a recently released report by the depository.
“There are these great enrichment activities in [the Park District],” said Kate Maehr, the executive director of the food depository, “and it is a tragedy that there are kids coming to learn how to dance and play sports and be better readers with empty stomachs.”
As of July 2009, more than 500,000 children in Cook County received subsidized breakfasts and lunches during the school year through federal government-sponsored programs, but the summer meal program for these children run by the United States Department of Agriculture reaches fewer than 30% of children in need, according to Diane Doherty, director of the Illinois Hunger Coalition.
Though more children are needy over summer break, Ms. Doherty is skeptical of the lasting reach of food delivery vans.
“My concern about mobile vans for children is that they pull up, provide [children] with food, and then they leave,” she said.
This is a lovely idea, in theory. But I think it’ll waste time and resources. How do you know the food is going to those who need it most?