So right now I'm planning our Summer Food Program, which provides a free hour-long activity and lunch to kids Monday through Thursday for eight weeks of the summer. We have the Zoo coming, a martial arts group, "Reptile Man", the Fire department, the library, and many many more...pretty excited!
Pretty excited for sun, for being outside for a WHOLE HOUR AND A HALF every day, maaaaaybe for hanging out with kids. That could probably be squashed pretty soon. They usually don't follow orders very well and they're messy and run around and are loud...yeesh.
The presentations/guests are cool, though not super necessary, but I can get behind this program more than Help for Holiday - though ironically, I would like to help organize that again. This provides lunch daily to kids who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch during the school year - as in, they may not have a reliable lunch (or breakfast) during the summer.
But again, the efficiency is pretty frustrating - for hours of planning, we attracted 25-30 kids each day last year and served about 2,000 meals. How many people is all this investment reaching? This is my constant question. And even though I think this program is important, I just have a hard time seeing "programs" as a long-term solution. They seem like band-aids to flawed policies and chronic underfunding. I think I'm a little too entranced with policy change.
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