USDA's nutrition assistance programs touch the lives of one in four American consumers annually and the nutrition education efforts associated with select programs offer a powerful opportunity to fight hunger and improve dietary quality among eligible individuals and families.

This study—authorized by the 2010 Child Nutrition Act—tests innovative strategies to end childhood hunger. 

The evaluation examined the impact of a $30 per child per month benefit on reducing child, adult and household hunger relative to a $60 monthly benefit. It found that the $30 benefit was as effective in reducing the most severe category of hunger among children during the summer as the $60 benefit.

The 2010 Agricultural, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act enabled us to initiate and carry out the Summer Food for Children demonstration projects, aimed at preventing hunger among children during summer months. 

This report examines administrative data obtained from the eight states that operated the 2011 eSFSP demonstrations to assess changes within demonstration sites compared to non-demonstration sites. 

Pursuant to the 2010 Agriculture Appropriations Act, FNS initiated and carried out the Summer Food for Children demonstration project, aimed at preventing hunger among children during summer months. 

School food service programs such as we have in 1971 did not just happen over-night nor even during the past decade. Preceding today's programs is a long history of more than a hundred years of development, of testing and evaluating, and of constant research to provide the best in nutrition, nutrition education, and food service for the nation's millions of children in school.