Vermont utilizes food shelves to provide children with free meals during summer break

Read the full article at VTDigger.org. Below is an excerpt.

For Vermont children from food-insecure families who rely on school lunches as their most dependable meal, advocacy groups are filling the summer gap with free meal programs.

At a food site in Burlington at the Community Resource Center, an average of five to 10 kids a week stop by and are met with a food shelf, soup kitchen and community space that serves free hot meals for families to sit down and eat.

The site is one of four operations within Feeding Champlain Valley, a food program from the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity.

“I think that’s kind of important as a kid growing up around here,” said Anthony Hunynh, the marketing and event specialist at Feeding Champlain Valley. “You want to be able to eat nice fresh food, but if you don’t go to school, that’s not possible.”

As kids enter their summer breaks, families that regularly get their meals from food sites will begin coming more frequently and utilizing more of the programs available, including programs specific to children. For kids in middle school and high school, Hunynh said the options for food become “pretty limited” during the summer. Partnering with Hunger Free Vermont and the Vermont Foodbank, the program focuses on addressing childhood hunger in Vermont, Anna McMahon, associate director of Feeding Champlain Valley, told VTDigger.