Need help finding healthy food and beverage options that meet students' taste preferences and are also in alignment with your school's budget.

Every community faces unique challenges when trying to connect eligible kids with the summer meals program. Across the country, these challenges are being overcome through exciting innovations and partnerships.

When done well, summer meals kick off events can have a big impact on participation. From coordinating events across a city to holding virtual kick-off events, this webinar shared examples of what has worked in various communities and tools to help you implement your kick-off strategy. 

Local, state and national elected officials can play many roles around summer meals, from opening new doors for expansion opportunities to raising awareness about summer meals programs. This webinar discusses engaging elected officials, and ensuring that they understand the importance of the summer meals program and opportunities to improve the program to reach more kids.

The webinar is the final installment of 2017's ‘School’s Out, Food’s In’ Summer Meals webinar series. Learn about streamlining options for summer and afterschool meals, as well as best practices for providers transitioning between the two programs.

A key part of connecting more children to summer meals is raising awareness about the availability of programming. In order to effectively raise the profile of summer meals within the community, it is imperative to identify your target audience, craft a clear message that reflects your goals, and employ specific tactics to effectively transmit this message to your audience in a timely manner. Learn about communication strategy that will amplify your ability to develop and implement an outreach plan that maximizes the impact of your meals program.

Improving meal quality is a key strategy for increasing participation in summer meals. We also know that meal quality can be defined in various ways for different people. In this webinar, we’ll hear from sponsors who operate summer meals programs that provide meals that are tasty and appealing to children. Learn about their challenges and barriers, lessons learned and strategies for ensuring meal quality – while controlling costs – to maximize participation in summer meals.

Expanding access to Afterschool Meals is crucial: a quarter of low-income parents worry that their children don't have enough to eat between lunch at school and breakfast the following day, yet there are less than five afterschool meals served for every 100 free or reduced-price lunches. Schools are excellent partners in increasing participation, and this webinar will focus on giving schools the tools needed to implement the Afterschool Meals Program effectively.

The concept of 'mobile meals' can be very different depending on the unique strengths and barriers present in each community. This second webinar in our No Kid Hungry 'School's Out, Food's In' webinar series will highlight providers who are thinking outside of the box to attract additional partners and deepen existing relationships in order to support transportation solutions that are sustainable, cost-effective, and responsive to community needs and assets.

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Collaborative planning is a key strategy in which multiple stakeholders join together to achieve progress that no individual organization can achieve on its own. It is also the subject of the inaugural webinar of this year's No Kid Hungry 'School's Out, Food's In' webinar series! Join us for an in-depth review of No Kid Hungry's Collaborative Planning Toolkit, an online resource designed to help State Agencies, school districts, community nonprofits, and local government officials increase participation in summer meals.