Project: Summer Food Service Program Study
Award Year: 2002
Amount of award, fiscal 2001: $2,207,501.00 fiscal 2002: $126,279.00
Institution: Mathematica Policy Research
Principal Investigator: Anne Gordon
Status: Completed
Detailed Objective: This project conducts the first nationally representative study in 15 years of the Summer Food Service Program. The study will obtain detailed information at the State, sponsor, and site levels on program operations and administration and on meal characteristics.

The study's major goal is to obtain detailed information on Summer Food Service Program operations and administration to determine if the program is being run efficiently and is meeting its nutrition objectives. The research topics to be included are: administrative procedures at the State level; factors affecting participation of sponsors; sponsors' program management and operations, including training, monitoring, and outreach; financial management, including procedures for vendor contracting and the use of other funding sources to help meet administrative and food costs; site operations, including activities offered, availability in urban and rural locations, transportation, and staffing; and the nutritional quality and safety of meals offered and the extent of plate waste. Additional funding was provided in fiscal 2002 to develop a database of all sites and sponsors that includes data on their basic characteristics and geographic information.

Topic: Child Nutrition, Program Operations, Summer Food Service
Output:
Allshouse, J. Food Assistance Research Brief--Feeding Low-Income Children When School is Out: The Summer Food Service Program, Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Report No. 34-10, USDA, ERS, July 2003.
Gordon, A., and R. Briefel. Feeding Low-Income Children When School Is Out--The Summer Food Service Program: Executive Summary, Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Report No. 30, USDA, ERS, April 2003.
Gordon, A., R. Briefel, N. Needels, N. Wemmerus, T. Zavitsky, R. Russo, T. Tasse, L. Kalb, A. Peterson, and D. Creel. Feeding Low-Income Children When School Is Out--The Summer Food Service Program: Final Report, E-FAN-03-001, USDA, ERS, March 2003b.