Year-Round Food Programs  

Nothing is more fundamental to ensuring that children can learn, grow and thrive than consistent access to healthy meals. Yet one in six children in the United States does not know where their next meal will come from. In response, the Y, in partnership with Walmart, is working to increase local Y participation in the USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) for afterschool meals and Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) for summer meals. Ys across the country serve as USDA food sponsors responsible for food distribution and administration, or partner with other USDA sponsors (e.g., schools, food banks, faith-based organizations) to nourish children. 

Alongside these meals, Y program sites offer enrichment activities to complement and support all domains of youth development (social, emotional, physical and cognitive). In addition, they follow the Y’s Healthy Eating and Physical Activity (HEPA) standards to increase nutritional quality and help meet physical activity guidelines. In 2019, the Y provided more than 22 million meals and snacks to more than 611,000 youth through over 5,000 year-round food program sites. With continued investment in CACFP and SFSP, Ys can strengthen communities by providing healthy meals and snacks to hungry children and help parents stretch critical food dollars.

• Co-sponsor the bipartisan Summer Meals Act of 2019 (S. 1908 and H.R. 2818). The Summer Meals Act expands access to healthy meals for children when school is out and improves the Summer Food Service Programs (SFSP). This legislation will address challenges faced by many summer meal providers and community partners who help to nourish hungry children. The Summer Meals Act will allow nonprofit and local government agencies to feed children year-round seamlessly through SFSP, allow sites to serve a third meal, provide transportation grants to reach children in underserved areas, and improve area eligibility by aligning it with other federal programs. 

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