Hunger Coalition writes grant with City of Oceanside to expand Afterschool and Summer Meal Programs

Oceanside children will soon have access to more food after school and during the summer thanks to a $20,000 grant awarded to the City of Oceanside by the National League of Cities.

Oceanside will soon be able to better address child hunger thanks to a $20,000 grant from the National League of Cities. With the CHAMPS grant funding, the Hunger Coalition will partner with the City of Oceanside and Oceanside Unified School District to raise awareness about child hunger and increase participation in the city’s existing out-of-school meal programs, and launch new afterschool and summer meal sites. Thanks to the Coast News for their coverage of this initiative 

The Hunger Coalition will serve as the project manager for the CHAMPS grant and will work closely with the City of Oceanside on the development, implementation and monitoring of progress for this initiative.

An important part of this work will be convening summer meal sites and sponsors to be part of the North County Youth Meals Task Force. This group will work to strengthen relationships and business processes with the City, the school district, school nutrition offices, day care centers and preschools, local government health and human services agencies, nonprofit and faith-based organizations, and low-income housing complexes to increase the number of summer meal sites and participation and programming at existing sites. The first meeting of the North County Youth Meals Task Force will be held at the end of April. All North County summer meal sites and sponsors are invited to attend.

North County is often categorized as a wealthy community, but many areas exceed the County’s poverty rate of 13.89%. Oceanside has an overall poverty rate of 14.2% (1 in 7 people below poverty level), but has many neighborhoods where the rate is higher than 20% (1 in 5 people below poverty). Oceanside aligns with current statewide food insecurity rates, whereas 1 in 4 children do not have enough to eat, and 17 of 20 low-income students fall into the summer nutrition gap.

More information on the Hunger Coalition’s work to expand access to youth meals across San Diego County can be found here.

San Diego Hunger Coalition’s 2017 San Diego Summer Meals Task Force began meeting in March. They meet every month through September. For more information about the San Diego or North County meetings, please contact Robin McNulty at robin@sdhunger.org