'A giant leap backwards': Indiana opts out of summer program for hungry schoolchildren

[Emile]

Last summer, hundreds of thousands of Hoosier families who qualify for food benefits and reduced-price school meals got a summertime boost: $120 per child monthly for food while schools were closed.

But relief for those 669,000 children may only have been a one-time blip. Indiana won’t participate in a federal summer food service program, known as SUN Bucks, in 2025.

“We made a great step forward last summer in giving families the ability to purchase the food that they need for their kids when they need it. And it just feels like a giant leap backwards to take this program away that the federal government is still operating and we could opt into it,” said Kate Howe, the executive director of the Indy Hunger Network. “But Indiana has decided that they don’t want to.”

Awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, SUN Bucks can be combined with free summertime meals and meals-to-go programs to ensure schoolchildren don’t go hungry. School breakfasts and lunches are often the only reliable source of nutrition for many students, and they lose access when the academic year ends.

Read more at: https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2025/05/07/a-giant-leap-backwards-indiana-opts-out-of-summer-program-for-hungry-schoolchildren/