Food themed summer reading program

Note for summer During the public health emergency, the USDA temporarily suspended certain SFSP rules through a series of waivers intended to facilitate food distribution within public health and safety guidelines. It has not yet been announced whether any of these waivers will continue in summer Updates will be posted here when available. Contact your state administering agency with questions. The Summer Food Service Program is a nationwide, federally funded, state-administered nutrition program.

Its purpose is to provide healthy meals and snacks to children in low income areas when school is out for the summer. There is no requirement of individual eligibility, and no information is requested of participating children or their guardians or caregivers. The SFSP has specific and strict guidelines about meal composition, food handling, serving meals, recordkeeping, reporting, training, and all aspects of the program.

A state government agency administers the program in each state. This may be the state Department of Education, Agriculture, or Health.

See www. Sponsors are establishments that handle the financial, administrative and food service responsibilities for SFSP in an area. Schools, local government agencies, camps, faith-based and other non-profit community organizations with the ability to manage a food service program may be SFSP sponsors. Sponsors may contract with food service providers and do not have to prepare the food themselves. Sponsors are reimbursed for their allowable expenses by the USDA.

A sponsor may itself be a site, may work with other sites, or both. A few libraries are sponsors as well as sites.

Sites are the locations where SFSP-reimbursed meals or snacks are served to children and teens. Sites may be located in a variety of settings, including schools, parks, libraries, community centers, health clinics, hospitals, apartment complexes, churches, and migrant centers. Sites work directly with sponsors. Most participating libraries are sites. First, assess whether your library has the capacity to serve food.

Food service is likely a new and very different activity than you and your staff are accustomed to, but it is not exceptionally challenging. Hundreds of libraries, many with limited staff and resources, have successfully implemented food service during the summer — the time of year when libraries are generally busiest with programming! Summer food service is within reach for most libraries. Note that as a site, you do not have to purchase or prepare the food.

Next, determine whether you are eligible to be an SFSP site. Eligibility is based on the economic conditions of a geographic area, measured by school data or census data.

You may also get their advice on whether an additional site at the library would benefit the community. If you serve an eligible area and wish to become a site, identify and contact a local sponsor or contact your state administering agency. If SFSP is not a good fit for your library or your service area is not eligible, you can still host a summer food program by working with businesses, nonprofits, local food banks and other community partners to provide meals or snacks.

Many local food banks order food through Feeding America in their states and if you can piggy back on their order your library may get great food snacks non-perishables for a great price.

Food banks also have connections with farmers and gardeners who provide food to the bank and may be willing to also donate food items to your library.

Library District 2 of Linn County in La Cygne, KS tried several approaches before finding one that truly suited the library and its community. You have to find the model that works for you. In rural areas it may be necessary to bring food to patrons through outreach initiatives. Consider providing food through bookmobile stops and other outreach programming.

The USDA addresses the special challenges of serving summer meals in rural communities:. Other models for bringing food to the community include tailgate food giveaways and food trucks, mobile pantries which distribute free food, mobile markets which sell food, community owned stores, and corner stores. If being a food service site is not a good fit for your library, you can still support and collaborate with existing SFSP sites.

After locating nearby sites, reach out to see how you can support and enrich their summer food program. Some ideas:. You can also publicize local SFSP sites to your library patrons who may not be aware that free healthy meals are available in the community:.

Promote Summer Meals bestpractices. Raise Awareness www. We will provide oversight to the new Oceans of Possibilities manual, highlight ideas for all age groups, and delve into display concepts. They are a globally acclaimed, online citizen science hub where more than 3, projects, searchable by location, topic, age level, etc, have been registered by individual project leaders or imported through partnerships with federal governments, NGOs, and universities.

Libraries and Summer Food. This was something that worked well for many libraries but the cost of continuing on their own is not an option. For a free choice, some libraries are using with success:. It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. Activities included melting chunks of ice to get to the dinosaurs inside, mixing up slime and bubbles, and a dramatic egg drop from a ladder to test our egg-holding containers!

Our library divided the children into two groups. Each team was given a very large cardboard piece as their wall. Then they used cardboard rolls to make a marble maze on their wall.

The team members worked together to create a marble run with at least two direction changes. It was a great STEM and teamwork activity. We did a cardboard arcade. Families made arcade games from cardboard and recycled items. They had to man the game and the library provided tickets, prizes and snacks. We had over 10 games, one being a twin mattress box made into a skee-ball game, and at least 75 gamers.

Our Engineering Club last year was such a huge success that we had to open up a second session. Our favorite activities were making towers out of newspaper and masking tape and testing their wind resistance, and an egg drop where kids had to protect the egg but they also had to work within a budget. The kids were so enthused! We had an hour where we judged the machines and then an hour open for the public. This multigenerational program was open to elementary, middle, high school, adults and families, so everyone could participate.

The machines built were incredible and the community loved coming out to see them. We posted videos of each machine on Facebook for those who missed the event. Every participant has asked for us to do it again this summer and we are thinking the machines should incorporate a sound element to fit the theme. They found fossils and other artifacts, which they were able to take home. We have our library open on Tuesday evenings during the summer with planned makerspace activities each week.

They loved Bat World and the chance to get up close to live bats. Animals and magic tricks are always a hit. The best was when our little library got a local retired NFL player to come and speak to the kids. He talked about the importance of school, showing respect and hard work. Very encouraging talk. My summer reading kickoff party is always our biggest program of the year! The library is always hopping. Last year, we had the elementary school jazz band perform, and then a fantastic big games and activity group called Knucklebones came — the kids were going WILD!

We had so much fun playing gaga ball, walking on balance beams and bouncing on bounce-donkeys! My summer reading program started with a First Day of Summer Party with food, games and lots of outdoor activities. I had guest story readers, like Batman. I also had fun and exciting crafts all summer taught by a high school honor student, and we ended with a Solar Eclipse Party.

My neighborhood public library has the best summer reading program. You can log your reading easily online and kids can earn prizes as they read. They also have fun events like a science show, a magic show, author visits and various singing and dancing performances.

My kids went to the library every week and had so much fun!