The rate of U.S. children living in poverty this year will be around 22 percent - up from 17 percent in 2006, before the recession began - according to a new report by the Foundation for Child Development.
At 19 Philadelphia Housing Authority sites, as well as at nearly 1,000 Philadelphia recreation centers, churches, schools and community centers, officials were just starting their summer battle against hunger on Monday.
Summer is the hungriest season in Philadelphia as it is elsewhere, because an estimated 150,000 public, charter, and Catholic schoolchildren who eat free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches during the school year are cut off, advocates say.
Estimates by the state Department of Education and others show that the meals at these city sites will feed around 80,000.
That leaves around 70,000 children without free or subsidized meals.
Throughout America, more than 20 million students eat free or reduced-price lunches during the school year. But just one in six will receive similarly subsidized summer meals, according to the Center for American Progress.
In South Jersey, where more than 70,000 students are eligible for free and reduced-cost summer-feeding programs, there is little infrastructure in place to serve summer meals, advocates say.
Making matters more difficult, fewer people give to food pantries at this time of year because donors tend to believe that family food emergencies are cold-weather related.
Yet the number of people flocking to pantries in the area continues to increase, said Adele Latourette, director of the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition in Englewood, Bergen County.
