Program areas at Children's Hunger Alliance
Children's Hunger Alliance directly provides meals to low income children in home based childcare, childcare centers, and afterschool programs through the child and adult care food program (cacfp). The agency is one of the largest sponsors of cacfp in Ohio sponsoring nearly 1,000 caregivers and providing more than 4.1 million meals and snacks in fy22. Children's Hunger Alliance also provides meals for summer programs through the summer food service program (sfsp), providing more than 95,700 meals to 127 site locations. Additionally, the agency provided over 697,000 meals to schools and childcare/head start centers for children to take home weekly to ensure access to meals over the weekend when not in school or childcare.
Providing educational resources to childcare homes and sponsored sites: fighting childhood Hunger and obesity requires more than access to healthy food and nutrition education. Therefore, in the agency's work with home based childcare providers, childcare centers and after school programs across Ohio, it provides a variety of training and educational materials that raise awareness of the importance of healthy eating, nutrition education and physical activity. Children's Hunger Alliance serves as a resource to schools, childcare providers, youth-serving organizations as well as elected officials and other policy makers, businesses and individuals to advance its mission of ensuring children without access receive healthy food, nutrition education and physical activity.
Increasing access to nutritious food: Children's Hunger Alliance advocates for increased participation in federal child nutrition, including the school breakfast program and summer food service program. Through this work, the agency increases access to nutritious food for thousands of children in public, private, charter, and community schools as well as community groups and faith-based organizations. In partnership with the national share our strength/no kid hungry campaign, Children's Hunger Alliance connected Ohio school districts with over $270,000 in grant funding to increase student access to school and summer meals in fy 22. With our support, over 120 school districts provided 3.8 million meals to free and reduced price eligible students.