Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott, joined by the New York Yankees, government agencies, elected officials and non-profit organizations, today encouraged families to take advantage of free breakfast and lunch for their youngsters as part of the annual summer meals program.
In addition to schools, pools, parks, libraries, public housing sites and soup kitchens, the Department of Education is operating mobile refrigerated trucks that provide meals to children at Orchard Beach in the Bronx, Flushing Meadows Park and the Queens Public Library.
Last summer, more than 7 million meals were served.
To help promote summer meals, the American Dairy Association has partnered with the New York Yankees, and several Yankee alumni will visit summer meals locations next month. In addition, Share Our Strength, a national non-profit that focuses on eliminating childhood hunger, is helping City agencies and the DOE get the word out that breakfast and lunch are available all summer to children.
"Summer meals are vital to ensuring that low-income children receive adequate nutrition in the summer months," said New York City Coalition Against Hunger Executive Director Joel Berg.
To learn more information, please visit http://www.nyccah.org/summermeals for a map of summer meals sites across the city.
To find a location nearby, parents can call 311, log onto the DOE's homepage, schools.nyc.gov or Share Our Strength's website, or contact NYCFood at www.nyc.gov/nycfood. Parents also may text "nycmeals to 877877, or visit the Parks Department's website for locations in parks and pools. Breakfast is served from 8:00 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. and lunch is served from 11:00 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. During the weekends only lunch is served and mobile food trucks are operational during weekends only at Flushing Meadows - Corona Park. Weekend lunch hours at pools and parks vary according to individual sites.
The DOE's summer meals program, which is administered by the Office of SchoolFood, has been operating for more than 30 years.
