FYI,

NJ Summer Meals Report, 2019

New Jersey is expected to experience one of the sharpest increases in child hunger across the United States, due to the COVID pandemic. Feeding America projects that New Jersey will experience a 75 percent increase in childhood hunger in 2020, making it the fifth worse state in the nation for the estimated increase.

Summer meal service is critical to fending off this hunger, according to a new 2020 report from Hunger Free New Jersey. The report finds that the number of children served last summer dipped 1 percent to about 101,000. That means New Jersey communities reached just 26 percent of children who eat free or low-cost school lunch. National standards recommend reaching 40 percent of these children.

“The first step to heading off growing childhood hunger is expanding the reach of federal summer meal programs,’’ said Adele LaTourette, director, Hunger Free New Jersey.

Read the report and view local data.

All the best,

Sharon Rawlins, MLS

Youth Services Specialist for Lifelong Learning

NJ State Library

185 West State St.

P.O. Box 520

Trenton, NJ 08625-0520

...@njstatelib.org" style="color: #2199e8; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">sraw...@njstatelib.org

609-278-2640 ext. 116

609-278-2650 – fax

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