Summer Food Service Program Meal Participation in Maryland Increased during the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) provides meals to children during out-of-school time, such as emergency school closures. This study assessed the trends in participation and operations of Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) sponsors in Maryland from 2016 to 2020 and evaluated the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic from 2019 to 2020. The total number of summer meals served significantly increased from approximately 3 million meals in 2019 to over 9.5 million meals in 2020. The number of breakfasts, lunches, and operating days also significantly increased from 2019 to 2020, but there was no significant change in the number of sites.

KEYWORDS:

• Summer meal program
• child nutrition programs
• nutrition policy
• pandemic

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge and sincerely thank Chinwe Obudulu and Morgan Demboski for their help assembling data and Laura Caulfield for her guidance in preparing this manuscript. We have received permission to acknowledge these individuals for their contributions.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/19320248.2022.2101412

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion [Community Scholars Grant Program].