Get The Facts
Download the brochure (PDF, 3MB) which explains how together we will end childhood hunger.
Or for more details, download the complete Plan To End Childhood Hunger in the Nation's Capital (PDF, 6.56MB).
The Ten-Part Plan
- Providing all District children a healthy breakfast
- Encouraging healthy food choices
- Helping families meet needs at home with food stamps
- Improving working families' economic security
- Increasing families' access to fresh produce
- Helping after-school programs provide healthy meals and snacks
- Expanding reach of summer meals programs
- Ensuring access to balanced, nutritious diets for all pregnant women and preschool children
- Ensuring access to nutritious food in shelters and food pantries
- Providing comprehensive public education about available assistance
10-Year Goal:
All District of Columbia children will eat a healthy breakfast.
The Plan to End Childhood Hunger
Free nutritious breakfast will Be offered to all District of Columbia school children.
It all starts with breakfast. Kids who start the day with a nutritious meal grow up healthier, do better in school, and lead more productive lives. But on a typical school day, only 41 percent of eligible children take advantage of the free school breakfast program that’s available in all District of Columbia public schools.
D.C. Hunger Solutions and FRAC will increase the number of kids who eat breakfast by focusing on public education to make sure that all students – and their parents – are aware of the benefi ts and availability of school breakfast. We’ll expand access by encouraging the charter schools that serve an increasing percentage of eligible kids to offer breakfast (if they don’t already). And we’ll explore ways to improve the quality and desirability of breakfasts served, so that older kids who currently reject school breakfasts will want to eat them.
Two-Year Action Plan
- Direct outreach to charter schools to offer free school breakfast programs.
- Engage PTAs and other community organizations as part of a community
outreach campaign to reach maximum number of students.
- Recruit media partners for aggressive public education/social marketing
effort to teach students the importance of breakfast.
- Conduct survey to determine causes of low participation among
older children.
- Encourage schools to make participation more convenient by serving
breakfast in the classroom (or from carts in the hallways) rather than the
cafeteria, when possible.
Action Steps
- Increase participation among elementary school children.
- Increase participation among middle and high school children.
- Increase participation rate for charter schools.
Measures of Success
- Number / % of District school children participating in free breakfast program.
- Number / % of elementary school children participating in free breakfast program.
- Number / % of middle & high school children participating in free breakfast program.
- Number / % of District charter schools offering free breakfast program.
- % change in absenteeism, missed days of schools, morning visits to school nurses, standardized test scores