Factors Associated with Participation in the Oregon Summer Food Program: A Mixed Methods Analysis

The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) was established to ensure children eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) continue to receive meals outside of the school year. However, participation in SFSP is relatively low (2.8 million annually) when compared with NSLP participation (30.4 million annually), suggesting that challenges exist in reaching children. Using a mixed methods approach, this study explored factors associated with SFSP participation. A secondary data analysis of the Oregon SFSP identified factors associated with SFSP participation at the Oregon SFSP-, sponsor-, and site-levels. Semi-structured interviews with SFSP sponsors explored barriers and facilitators to SFSP participation. Results showed increases in the total number of meals served as well as number of sponsors and sites for the Oregon SFSP over the study period. Sponsor average daily participation (ADP) demonstrated a significant decrease over the study period. Sponsors that offered more meal types, greater number of activities, and were school districts had a higher ADP. Results from interviews showed themes of organizational characteristics, site environment, and meal logistics. Findings suggest that strengthening existing sites and tailoring the current SFSP model to allow successful expansion of the program to new sites may have the greatest impact on increasing average daily participation and improve the operational sustainability of the SFSP

Meals for Good: An innovative community project to provide healthy meals to children in early care and education programs through food bank catering

Innovative approaches to childhood obesity prevention are warranted in early care and education (ECE) settings, since intervening early among youth is recommended to promote and maintain healthy behaviors. The objective of the Meals for Good pilot was to explore feasibility of implementing a food bank-based catering model to ECE programs to provide more nutritious meals, compared to meals brought from home (a parent-prepared model). In 2014–2015, a 12-month project was implemented by a food bank in central Florida in four privately-owned ECE programs. An explanatory sequential design of a mixed-methods evaluation approach was utilized, including a pre-post menu analysis comparing parent-prepared meals to the catered meals, and stakeholder interviews to determine benefits and barriers. The menu analysis of lunches showed daily reductions in calories, fat, and saturated fat, but an increase in sodium in catered meals when compared to parent-prepared meals. Interviews with ECE directors, teachers, parents, and food bank project staff, identified several benefits of the catered meals, including healthfulness of meals, convenience to parents, and the ECE program's ability to market this meal service. Barriers of the catered meals included the increased cost to parents, transportation and delivery logistics, and change from a 5 to a 2-week menu cycle during summer food service. This pilot demonstrated potential feasibility of a food bank-ECE program partnership, by capitalizing on the food bank's existing facilities and culinary programming, and interest in implementing strategies focused on younger children. The food bank has since leveraged lessons learned and expanded to additional ECE programs. Keywords: Early care and education (ECE), Child care, Meals, Food service provider, Food bank, Catering model, Pilot program, Feasibilit