By Bryan Thompson

The Kansas State Department of Education and four nonprofit partners are going back to the drawing board in search of ways to keep rural children from going hungry when school is out.

Federal officials last month rejected their proposed demonstration project aimed at boosting participation in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program. KSDE, Kansas Food Bank, Harvesters Community Food Network, Kansas Health Foundation and Kansas Appleseed submitted an application in February for a demonstration project to provide summer meals at 10 sites in rural Kansas, according to Cheryl Johnson, KSDE director of child nutrition and wellness.

“In those communities, they would have congregate sites for children together, and they could have activities at least two days a week,” she said. “When the students came those days, they could take home shelf-stable meals for one or two days.” Johnson said the program was designed to decrease transportation costs for rural parents.

“That’s really what it comes down to, is to make it cost-effective for parents if they’re having to drive children to a meal site a long distance,” she said. “Are they going to do that every day? The cost for gasoline might be more than having food for their children.”

Johnson said USDA Food and Nutrition Service notified her office in early May that the project would not be allowed — at least not yet.

“USDA said that they weren’t authorized to fund any more demonstration projects in this fiscal year,” she said. “They encouraged us to talk with our congressional delegation as we move forward to see, in child nutrition reauthorization, if they would consider some additional demonstration projects.”

Johnson has spoken with staffers for Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, who indicated an interest in finding ways to serve meals to more children in rural communities during the summer. Roberts is chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, which had a hearing last month on reauthorization of child nutrition programs that are set to expire Sept. 30.

Sarah Little, press secretary for Roberts, said the senator would not comment now on specifics of any child nutrition programs. However, she expects Roberts will have “plenty to say” as a reauthorization bill takes shape in his committee. The need for new approaches is reflected in the fact that 44 counties in rural Kansas had no summer meal sites last year.

Crystal FitzSimons, director of school and out-of-school-time programs for the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in Washington D.C., thinks that’s largely because the Summer Food Service Program targets areas where child poverty is concentrated — and rural Kansas doesn’t fit that mold.

“In a state like Kansas, a lot of communities with significant numbers of low-income kids may not be able to qualify a summer food site, because the 50 percent requirement that 50 percent of the kids have to be eligible for free or reduced-price meals might keep the community from qualifying,” she said.

“We’re hoping that Congress might lower that to 40 percent, and we think it would have a pretty dramatic impact on Kansas.” FitzSimons is one of the authors of a new report on federal summer nutrition programs and state participation levels. Only Oklahoma ranks below Kansas.

According to the report, only 7 percent of the children who eat free or reduced-price lunches during the school year in Kansas ate the free summer meals last year. Still, that was an improvement from 2013. “Kansas is doing a pretty good job of promoting the summer nutrition programs,” she said.

“They’re recruiting additional sponsors and sites, and so last summer they did see an increase, even under the existing rules.” Sponsor organizations agree to provide labor and facilities for meal sites. This year Kansas has 22 new sponsors and more than 100 new meal sites, including several in communities that have never had a summer meal site before.

FitzSimons said one new way to help children from low-income rural families get more reliable access to food during the summer is by giving their parents an electronic benefits card to use for food purchases. This would be similar to the debit cards that replaced food stamps in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Oregon conducted a demonstration project for such a system. “We think that it really does provide a pretty important option for rural communities and underserved areas,” she said. FitzSimons also hopes Congress will include funding in the reauthorization for bus transportation to meal sites, at least in rural areas. The benefits extend beyond the nutrition, she said.

“The great thing about the Summer Nutrition Programs is that they support summer programming and summer activities for kids that keep them active and learning and engaged and focused,” FitzSimons said.

Editor’s note: The Kansas Health Foundation is primary funder of the Kansas Health Institute, which is the parent organization of the editorially independent KHI News Service.

Bryan Thompson  is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.