Summer Meal Partners

WHAT IS SUMMER MEAL PARTNERS?

FEEDING THE MIND AND THE BODY

Summer Meal Partners (SMP) of Northwest Ohio is dedicated to making sure every child is offered nutritious meals at no cost each summer. SMP is a collaboration of community organizations that have joined together to form community wide partnerships designed to create enrichment opportunities at meal sites in order to:

• Increase attendance
• Prevent learning loss
• Educate children about nutrition basics
• Encourage children to return each day
• Ensure greater supervision and safety for the children
• Engage Children in fun activities

SMP works to develop innovative approaches to eliminate barriers for children, implement community-wide solutions to hunger, and obtain key data to drive decision making.

LOOKING FOR MORE INFORMATION ON SUMMER MEAL SITES?

For more information about Summer Meal Partners, please contact Wendi Huntley at Connecting Kids to Meals.

Call (419) 720-1106 or  email [email protected] 

PRESS RELEASE: Key Partnerships Enable Connecting Kids To Meals To Continue To Feed Kids In Need

Starting Tuesday, September 8, Connecting Kids to Meals (CKM) will continue providing access to healthy meals for kids. Wendi Huntley is the President of CKM and says: “Since the day COVID-19 first hit our Greater Toledo community forcing the closure of our schools, Connecting Kids To Meals has stood in the gap to provide greater access to nutritious meals for kids at no cost. We know that families were already struggling financially, and that hasn’t improved much now that we are 6 months removed from the on-set of this pandemic. Our goal is to supplement the hunger relief network in our community in every way possible.”

Connecting Kids To Meals has once again partnered with the Toledo Lucas County Public Library to host meal sites at virtually all locations Monday through Friday from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. Some local school districts are distributing meals early in the day. The time slot was selected to give kids a chance to get an additional well-balanced meal much like they do when attending afterschool programs in person. Jason Kucsma, Executive Director/Fiscal Officer of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library stated that “This has been a perfect example of two organizations working together to help meet the most basic needs of our families, and I am so pleased we can continue to play a modest part in supporting Connecting Kids to Meals’ invaluable work.”

Additional partner locations such as the Boys & Girls Club Homer Hanham location on Detroit Avenue, several emergency shelters along with other community centers help to strengthen the support and educational services being provided to kids in our area. A new partnership has been formed with Read for Literacy. Reading books along with activities will be made available to kids to take home from various meal sites. “We understand that while children are not physically in school buildings, we need to support their at-home learning by making sure they have access to reading materials. Our goal is to build at home libraries for these students along with providing activity sheets to encourage literacy engagements in their homes” said Diana Bush, Executive Director of Read for Literacy, Inc.

Free meals are available for kids at nearly 20 sites in our community(see the calendar on this site. Parents, Grandparents and care givers can pick up meals for kids if kids can’t attend. Please visit

www .ConnectingKidstoMeal.org or call (419) 720-1106 for more information.