Dive Brief:
- While the number of children receiving after-school snacks and suppers through the federal Afterschool Nutrition Programs increased slightly from October 2023 to October 2024, participation still remained below pre-pandemic levels, according to a report released Wednesday by the Food Research & Action Center.
- The Afterschool Supper Programs, for instance, served 1.26 million students on an average weekday in October 2024 — a 2.8% rise from October 2023, FRAC found. Despite those gains, the report said, roughly 173,400 fewer children received after-school suppers in October 2024 compared to October 2019.
- Many more children could benefit from after-school meals, FRAC said, adding that only 1 in 16 children who participated in the federal free or reduced price school lunch program in October 2024 received a meal from the Afterschool Supper Programs.
Dive Insight:
Even though the recent data shows more students were served after-school suppers compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, the FRAC report said that the program reached “far too few children.”
Historic one-time federal pandemic emergency aid helped boost funding for after-school programs and ultimately expanded after-school meal access, but those federal dollars have mostly expired and been spent, the report added.
The two federal Afterschool Nutrition Programs are the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the National School Lunch Program, which both provide funding to serve snacks and suppers to children during educational and enrichment programming. The funding is distributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through state agencies, typically state departments of education, health or agriculture.
The CACFP At-Risk Afterschool Supper and Snack Program reimburses public and private
nonprofit schools, local government agencies, and private nonprofit organizations for serving food to children 18 years and younger during educational programs running after school, on weekends or during school holidays. NSLP also reimburses public and private nonprofit schools for providing after-school snacks to children, but it does not include supper.
The FRAC report noted that if every state served supper to 15 children out of every 100 who come from low-income families and participated in school lunch in October 2024, then over 1.8 million students would have received an after-school supper. That also means another $163.5 million in federal reimbursed funds would have been available to support after-school meal programs in that month alone if all qualified states participated.
Crystal FitzSimons, president of FRAC, said in a Wednesday statement that Congress and local communities must do more to help increase the number of children who access quality after-school programs that offer suppers and snacks.
“Families are facing rising food costs, and many parents are working long hours just to get by,” FitzSimons said. “The Afterschool Nutrition Programs help families stretch tight household budgets and ensure children get the nutrition and programming they need to learn and thrive.”
To boost student participation in after-school supper and snack programs, FRAC recommends some of these policy changes:
- Consolidate after-school and summer nutrition programs. Many local organizations and government agencies have to switch between operating the Afterschool Meal Program under CACFP and the Summer Food Service Program, even though the same children are often served throughout the year. Consolidating the two programs into a single year-round operation under SFSP would allow programs to reach more children effectively.
- Expand NSLP to allow school food authorities to also serve suppers. Schools would be more incentivized to serve suppers if NSLP didn’t limit their after-school programs to serving only snacks. Currently, schools must operate under the CACFP to serve a full meal during after-school hours, which adds “unnecessary administrative burden.”
- Lower the area eligibility threshold. To qualify for after-school nutrition programs, sites must be in areas where at least 50% of children qualify for free or reduced price school meals. That eligibility percentage should drop to 40% to expand access to more communities, particularly in rural and suburban communities with high needs but less concentrated poverty.
