USDA’s Summer Food Service Program served 2.8 million children at 36,156 sites in fiscal year 2024

In fiscal year (FY) 2024, USDA’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) provided free meals to about 2.8 million children on a typical day in July, the program’s peak month, and provided more than 159 million meals for the year. The SFSP meals were served at 36,156 sites where children gather in summer, such as schools, libraries, camps, community centers, and churches. Average daily attendance was similar in FY 2024 and FY 2019. However, the number of sites has stayed below FY 2019 levels for the last three years, possibly because of the expansion of the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program. P-EBT was originally established to reimburse eligible families for school meals missed because of school closures related to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, but P-EBT was expanded to cover summer months in FY 2021–23. The Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children Program (Summer EBT or SUN Bucks) began in FY 2024, operating much like P-EBT by issuing benefits to eligible households with school-aged children for the summer months, when school meals through other programs are not typically available. The peak in SFSP daily attendance in FY 2021 corresponds to the period when, in response to the pandemic, waivers were granted to allow SFSP sites to distribute “grab and go” meals, to provide meals for multiple days at one time, and to allow parents to pick up meals for their children. This chart appears on the USDA, Economic Research Service’s Summer Food Service Program section of the Child Nutrition Programs topic page.