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

These demonstration projects are being conducted under the authority and funding provided by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010. The Appropriations Act authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to use $85 million to develop and test alternative methods of providing access to food for low-income children in urban and rural areas during the summer months, when schools are not in regular session.

The Workshop on Understanding the Relationship Between Food Insecurity and Obesity, held in Washington, DC, from Nov. 16 -18, 2010, was designed to provide an opportunity to explore and illuminate the relationship between food insecurity and obesity, the current state of research, and data and analyses needed to advance understanding of the relationship as a way of countering both hunger and obesity in the United States. 

To ensure program integrity, school districts must sample household applications certified for free or reduced-price meals, contact the households, and verify eligibility. This process (known as household verification) can be burdensome for both school officials and households. Direct verification uses information from certain other means-tested programs to verify eligibility without contacting applicants. Potential benefits include: less burden for households, less work for school officials, and fewer students with school meal benefits terminated because of nonresponse to verification requests.

The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004  permits direct verification of school meal applications and requires FNS to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of direct verification by school districts.

The purpose of this pilot was to test possible methods that could lead to valid estimations of the number of meals served by family day care homes. The estimated number of meals served can be used to develop estimates of over- and under-counts of meal claims that result in erroneous payments.

The report describes the project goals and strategies, provides a general description of each grantee, and gives a synopsis of project performance. 

The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 permits direct verification of school meal applications and requires FNS to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of direct verification (instead of household verification) by school district.

This report documents the extent to which CFBOs and the public entities that received food stamp outreach grants in 2001 and 2002 sustained their outreach projects up to three years beyond the funding period, challenges faced in sustaining their projects, and the factors contributing to their sustainability.

To explore other options for assessing impacts, FNS awarded a contract to provide FNS with new information on: experiences and satisfaction of participants in FNS programs, and impacts of program participation on food security, diet quality, and other indicators of household well-being.