Discover EMtY
Introduction
An estimated 29.4 million children benefit from the services provided by the National School Lunch Program offered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)(USDA, 2020). This program provides food access for children who qualify for free or reduced priced lunches at school. However, the
On March 17, 2020, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Baylor Collaborative, McLane Global, and PepsiCo announced a plan to deliver meals to students in rural areas affected by COVID-19 school closures. This effort, Emergency Meals to You (EMtY), is an expansion of a pilot the Collaborative conducted in 2019 called Meals to You. During this pilot project in summer 2019, The Collaborative provided over 475,000 meals to 4,000 children. Boxes were shipped weekly to children and teens in rural areas where traditional summer meal sites were unavailable.
The EMtY program was much larger than the pilot project:
Almost 40 million meals were provided for children affected by nationwide school closures over the summer of 2020
The program was rolled out across 43 states and reached as many as 127,00 households and 348 school districts
Boxes contained 20 nutritious meals (10 breakfasts and 10 lunches) to cover what would normally be received at school over two school weeks
It was a multi-sectoral program that included leaders from the business, government, and academic sectors.
A video summary of the EMtY program is available.