H.R. 3667 Rep. Joseph Morelle and Rep. John Katko (2019): Summer Meals and Learning Act of 2019

Other Bill co-sponsors: Representative Espaillat, Omar, Sewell and Trahan

• Creates a new Federal grant program that provides grants to State libraries to allow schools with summer lunch programs to keep their libraries open for student use during the summer months
• State libraries that already provide lunch programs and where at least 50% of students read below grade level or are at risk of reading below grade level are eligible to apply
• Establishes $25 million grant program (funded at $5 million for each of the fiscal years 2020 through
  2024) to keep libraries open at summer meal sites to help close the achievement gap for low-income students

S 1908 Sen. Gillibrand and Sen. Murkowski (2019): Summer Meals Act of 2019

Also House version HR 2818 (Rep. Larsen (D-Wash.) and Rep. Young (R-Alaska)

The bipartisan, bicameral Summer Meals Act would:

• Help more children access healthy food by lowering the threshold to allow areas with 40 percent or more of students receiving free or reduced lunch to be eligible for the program, rather than the current threshold of 50 percent. This would make the meals programs consistent with the eligibility for summer learning programs provided through the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative.
• Reduce the paperwork burden for meal program sponsors who want to participate in the program by streamlining the application process for programs operating year round.
• Improve nutrition in rural, underserved, and hard to reach areas by providing transportation grants for underserved areas to get children to summer meal sites and by promoting innovative ways to increase children’s access to summer meals, such as through mobile meal trucks.
• Offer sites the option of serving two meals and a snack or three meals to children who attend evening enrichment programs during the school year and summer months.
• Allow Summer Nutrition Program providers to serve food to children after emergencies or disasters and be reimbursed if the meals are taken offsite.

The Network for Youth Success has supported several pieces of federal legislation that would increase access to high-quality afterschool programs.

S. 613 Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (2015): Summer Meals Act of 2015

• Improves the area eligibility test to allow CBO’s to participate in summer nutrition programs to 40% free and reduced-priced meals.
• Allows local government agencies and private nonprofit organizations to feed children year-round—afterschool and in the summer—through a single Summer Food Service Program process.
• Provides funding for transportation grants to fund innovative approaches and mobile meal trucks.
• Allows all sites to serve a third meal.

S. 308 Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Lisa Murkowski/H.R. 1042 Rep. Daniel Kildee (2015): Afterschool for America’s Children Act, Senate Version

• Renews the 21^st Century Community Learning Centers program through 2021.
• Strengthens ties between schools, programs, families and community partners.
• Improves data collection and review processes so that grant applicants may be more rigorously reviewed, and programs may get more meaningful feedback.
• Refocuses efforts on struggling schools and areas with high populations of traditionally underserved and low income students.

H.R. 823 Rep. Paul Tonko (2015): Educating Tomorrow’s Engineers Act

• Increases support for teaching all aspects of STEM.
• Directs 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program to include STEM activities in before and after school instruction in conjunction with traditional math and sciences.

S. 444 Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (2015): Supporting Afterschool STEM Act

• Creates a grant program for training and professional development for practitioners in before and afterschool STEM programs.