The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) provides free meals to children in low-income areas through eligible organizations, primarily in the summer months when most schools are closed for instruction. USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) administers SFSP sites. SFSP sites include schools, camps, parks, playgrounds, housing projects, community centers, churches, and other public sites where children gather in the summer. Typically, sites are eligible to offer free USDA-funded meals and snacks if:
- The sites operate in areas where at least half of the children come from families with incomes at or below 185 percent of the Federal poverty level; or
- Half or more of the children served by the site meet this income criterion (see FNS's Summer Food Service Program).
In fiscal year 2024, the program served a total of 159 million meals at a cost of about $677 million. In July 2024, the month when SFSP operations typically peak, the program provided meals to 2.8 million children each day across more than 36,000 sites.
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To respond to disruptions caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to the delivery of school-based meals through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP), USDA waived restrictions on the location of SFSP sites and when they could operate. These waivers expired in the summer of 2022. The 2024 report, The Food and Nutrition Assistance Landscape: Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report, provides a summary of these pandemic-related modifications to NSLP and other Child Nutrition programs. To learn more about ERS research about pandemic-era changes to the SFSP, please see:
All values and figures are based on data available as of December 2024 and may be subject to revision.
Additional studies and information about program eligibility requirements, benefits, and application processes are available from the Food and Nutrition Service Child Nutrition Programs web page.