The Illinois State Board of Education is looking for groups to help ensure kids have access to healthy meals over the summer this year.
ISBE Principal Consultant Tim Murphy says schools, park districts, camps, and churches should sign up to help distribute the state’s summer meal program: “It’s still winter, but we know it’s really important to start thinking about summer meals and launch the ISBE search for sponsors and sites for the summer food service program. It’s very important because we know that hunger doesn’t stop when summer vacation begins. We launch this search really early to get sponsors and sites across the state. It’s so important to get these meals for children during the summer because there are so many of them that rely on these meals during the school year.”
Nearly 18 million meals were served to students last summer, although kids in some counties weren’t able to access the program because of a lack of groups to distribute the meals. Organizations can sign up for the program online at https://www.isbe.net/nutrition.