Summer Food Service Program

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. In fiscal year (FY) 2019 (before the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic), the program served a total of 142 million meals at a cost of about $475 million. In July of 2019, the month when SFSP operations typically peak, the program provided meals to 2.7 million children each day across more than 47,000 sites.

USDA 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).

The onset of the pandemic in the second half of FY 2020 disrupted the provision of meals through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) by forcing schools to limit their operations. In response to these disruptions and to meet rising food needs during the pandemic, USDA waived restrictions on the location of SFSP sites and when they could operate, making the SFSP one of the largest child nutrition programs during the pandemic. Many children also obtained free meals through the NSLP and SBP’s Seamless Summer Option (see FNS's School Meals). To learn more about pandemic-era changes to the SFSP, please see:

In July of 2020 and 2021, the program provided meals to 5.7 and 5.1 million children each day, respectively. In total, the program provided 1.3 billion meals at a cost of $4.3 billion dollars in FY 2020 and 3 billion meals at a cost of $10.7 billion in FY 2021, the first full year of the pandemic.

All figures are based on data available as of April 2022 and are subject to revision.

For the latest information on updates to the program during the COVID-19 pandemic see FNS Responds to COVID-19.

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.

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