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Feeding hungry minds and bodies®
by using federal programs to provide a nutritious breakfast, lunch and afterschool meal/snack, or summer meals. |
 Federal
programs exist to provide all of Ohio’s hungry children a nutritious breakfast, lunch, afterschool meal/snack, and summer meals.
These programs reimburse schools, faith-based and youth-serving organizations for providing children access to
nutritious meals at school and during the summertime, too. Unfortunately, they're tremendously underutilized in
Ohio. That’s where Children’s Hunger Alliance comes in.
In working with schools, faith-based and youth-serving organizations to expand Ohio’s participation in federal
nutrition programs, we:
- Raise awareness of childhood hunger and its impact on child development, health and learning.
- Increase participation in federal programs that offer reimbursement for serving nutritious meals
to children.
- Help implement proven successful solutions to ensure more children participate in breakfast, lunch,
afterschool meal and snack and summer food programs.
- Provide technical assistance to ensure meal programs operate efficiently and effectively.
By empowering schools, faith-based and youth-serving organizations to feed local children with federal resources,
everyone wins:
- Children get the nutrition they need to learn and thrive.
- Federal funds feed local children while strengthening local economies.
- Schools run more smoothly because students are healthier, happier and better behaved.
- School food service operations run more efficiently and effectively.
- Parents stretch food dollars further, because children get no- or low-cost access to food at school
and during the summer months.
- Ohioans win because healthy children are more likely to grow into healthy, productive adults.
Children who eat nutritious foods:
- attend school more regularly, and on time, than their peers who don't eat breakfast;
- have fewer behavior problems;
- have fewer visits to see the school nurse; and,
- perform better academically
Helpful Links:
As you can see, the benefits of children eating breakfast is key to Children's Hunger Alliance's philosophy
of Feeding hungry minds and bodies®, and that is why we created the School & Summer Nutrition team in
2003.
School & Summer Nutrition combines our work on improving the nutrition of school lunches, expanding the
availability of school breakfasts, and expanding the availability of nutritious meals/snacks after school and in the summer through the
Summer Food Service Program.
This work includes:
- Community Engagement in School & Summer
Nutrition, including the engagement and assistance in helping schools start and increase participation in School
Breakfast, Summer Food Service and Afterschool Meal and Snack programs across the entire state;
- Public Policy,
advocating to state and federal legislators and policymakers to support legislation and rule changes that promote
school breakfasts, lunches, summer food service programs, as well as nutritional and fitness issues; and,
- Research
and Analysis, where Children's Hunger Alliance collects and analyzes data on the number of school breakfasts
and lunches being served, attendance, eligibility for free and reduced pricing, and participation.
Estimate the financial feasibility of the Universal Breakfast and/or Lunch program for your
school! The ADA Dairy Council Mideast has developed a Universal Breakfast Calculator. Download the Universal
Breakfast Calculator (Excel). Make sure you start from Worksheet 1.
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For more information, call 614-341-7700, Ext. 221 or e-mail
Charlie Kozlesky.
Children's
Hunger Alliance and USDA are equal opportunity providers and employers.
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