Island Harvest To Provide Summer Meals To Children In Need

LONG ISLAND, NY — Tens of thousands children from low-income Long Island families rely on school breakfast and lunch programs to get reliable meals. With summer here and schools closed, many of those children may not have other options.

To help those children get the food they need, Island Harvest Food Bank will be once again running its Summer Food Service Program. Island Harvest will deliver breakfasts and lunches, Monday through Saturday, to programs operated by municipal agencies, summer and day camps, community centers, libraries, churches and community-based organizations across both Nassau and Suffolk counties.

The program, which is administered by the Food and Nutrition Service, which is part of the USDA, will run from June 27 through Sept. 3.

“Summer meals and snacks provided through the Summer Food Service Program offer critical relief to many children whose families who were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and face a daily struggle just to put food on the table,” said Randi Shubin Dresner, president and CEO of Island Harvest Food Bank. “Summer should be a time for good fun for kids and their families, not a time to worry about getting enough to eat. The SFSP helps get them through the summer months with less worry.”

Island Harvest said it expects to provide nearly 159,500 meals to more than 2,550 children at 35 sites across Long Island this summer.

The Summer Food Service Program provides meals and snacks, at no charge, to children 18 and younger. The program’s acceptance and participation requirements are the same for all, regardless of race, color, national origin, gender, age or disability.

For a complete list of Summer Food Service Program sites on Long Island, visit islandharvest.org.