YMCA offering summer meals program

In the back of the "mobile cafe," which is really a bus from Family YMCA of Greater Augusta parked Wednesday at Fox Den Apartments, Choyce Epperson is recapping his summer and his plans so far.

"We went fishing," the 8-year-old said while eating a hamburger. "I was thinking about catching a catfish."

In the seat in front of him, Jamarcus Bussey, 9, has more serious plans.

"I'll be cutting grass with my dad," he said.

Both are benefiting from the Summer Food Service Program that the Augusta Y is offering in eight counties in both Georgia and South Carolina, said Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Wirt. The Augusta Y is among 84 organizations that will be offering summer meals through Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, said Cindy Kicklighter, marketing and outreach manager for the nutrition program. The meals program is funded through $15 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Last summer, the state agency was able to provide 4.8 million nutritious meals across Georgia, Kicklighter said.

More than 20 million schoolchildren nationwide received free lunch at school in 2017, but for many that ended at the last school bell. Nationally, only 15 percent, or a little over 3 million, took part in the summer meals program that year, according to the Food Research & Action Center.

Georgia and South Carolina did a little better. Georgia ranked seventh in the nation in getting those children into a summer program, with 195,233 out of of 870,584 getting a summer meal or 22.4 percent. South Carolina wasn't quite as good at 15th, with 61,610 out of 345,251 or 17.8 percent.

It is a problem many in this area face this summer, Wirt said. The children are home from school "but parents don't get extra food stamps (to cover) an extra meal," she said.

The Y saw the problem in its summer camps with "kids coming to camp with no food," Wirt said. About four years ago, the Augusta Y decided to do something about it and got involved in the summer program, which the organization begins the week after school ends and runs up to the week before school, trying to cover that summer gap.

"They need it the whole summer," Wirt said.

Georgia DECAL has a wide and diverse number of groups across the state that are distributing the summer meals, Kicklighter said.

"It can be a nonprofit organization, it can be a college, a university, a government agency or church," she said. "What they do is recruit meal sites."

This year, the Augusta Y added 15 sites, including Fox Den, and uses four mobile cafes to hit a number of different housing sites, Wirt said. The organization is providing around 1,700 meals a day and a thousand snacks, she said. That kind of access is critical, Kicklighter said.

"What we've found is you need to go where the children are," she said. "You need to make it accessible to them."

The biggest barrier for many parents is they just don't know about it, Wirt said. And the Augusta Y know there are more that can be reached, she said.

"We definitely see the need and continue to apply for other funding," Wirt said. Partnering with Golden Harvest Food Bank, they are also trying to make sure parents can get extra food and extra groceries through these same mobile sites, she said.

But watching children clamber onto the bus for a hot meal, that just feels right to Wirt.

"Trying to get kids fed, it really is what the Y is all about," she said.

Find a Summer Meal site

Parents in Georgia interested in finding a Summer Meal Site can text "summer meals" to 97779. They will get back a locator that they can then put in their ZIP code to find the closest site to them.