Meals-to-You Expands to Serve 5 Million Meals a Week to Rural Children

New public-private partnership, including Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, surpasses initial goal to serve five times more kids during COVID-19

Media Contact: Lori Fogleman, Baylor University Media and Public Relations, 254-709-5959
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WACO, Texas (May 5, 2020) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today announced a major expansion of Meals-to-You, an innovative partnership between the Baylor University Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, USDA, McLane Global and PepsiCo, to feed low-income kids in rural areas. The initiative will serve nearly 5 million meals per week to rural children impacted by COVID-19-related school closures – five times its original goal.

“We are grateful to be a part of an innovative team made up of both the public and private sectors motivated by the strong desire to help our neighbors in need,” said Jeremy Everett, executive director of the Baylor University Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty. “We hope that the boxes of food will nourish children and communicate to their families that they are not in this tough circumstance alone.”

Initially, Meals-to-You aimed to deliver nearly 1 million meals per week to students eligible for free and reduced-price meals in a limited number of rural schools closed due to COVID-19, but that goal has been quickly surpassed. Meals-to-You has already shipped nearly 3.5 million meals to the homes of children in 12 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

In the last few weeks, 23 additional states and Puerto Rico have requested to participate in Meals-to-You, so the partnership is now quickly ramping up to serve 5 million meals per week to help meet growing demand. With the initial weeks of the program having been a huge success, USDA worked closely with partners to substantially increase capacity. Thirteen of those states are approved and have families either enrolling or in the final stages of verification, while 10 additional states have recently started the application process.

The Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty continues to work closely with states interested in the initiative and can now add more states to the program to meet continued demand. In addition, the Meals-to-You expansion will include a research component led by Baylor researchers, who will study family’s responses to the COVID-19 crisis and the potential impact of Meals-to-You.

“With this award, Baylor University is advancing research that sheds light on the economic implications of the coronavirus outbreak,” said Kathy Krey, Ph.D., director of research and administration of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty. “We are evaluating the challenges and successes of the Meals-to-You program and how it impacts families’ food security.”

Meals-to-You boxes contain 20 nutritious meals – 10 breakfasts and 10 lunches – to cover the meals children would normally receive at school over two school weeks. Foods contained in the boxes meet USDA’s Summer Food Service Program meal standards and may include items like milk, fruit cups, cereal, whole-grain crackers and chili. Boxes are delivered directly to children’s doorsteps via the U.S. Postal Service and other delivery services.

USDA is hearing directly from families about how much this program means to them.

“I just wanted to say ‘An Unmeasurable Amount of Thank You’s’ are being sent to you and the entire teams it took to coordinate, prepare, and distribute these meals across my community,” said a mother from rural Texas. “I sincerely appreciate the incredible amount of effort it took for this to happen and I’m indebted to you and your teams! Thank you for making a difference in my household without even knowing who I am (we’re a family of 5 with one parent working with reduced wages).”

“Uncertain and difficult times call for unprecedented actions and big picture ideas. Rural children affected by school closures faced food insecurity, but these great American groups and companies stepped up to help their fellow countrymen by delivering boxes of food across the country,” Secretary Perdue said. “This program has been so successful and faced such high demand that we are expanding to 5 million meals a week. Our partnership to feed kids embodies President Trump’s whole of America approach to tackling the coronavirus by utilizing the best of America – private sector ingenuity with public sector backing.”

“This USDA-funded program has been a lifeline to thousands of students across rural America that would otherwise go hungry during this challenging period,” said Denton McLane, chairman of McLane Global. “We’ve shifted to a 24-hour production schedule across all locations to meet the demand, and couldn’t be prouder of our partners, employees and the people on the ground working to ensure these meals get to those who need it most.”

“We’re proud to partner with the USDA and Baylor to deliver meals directly to students who need them now more than ever,” said Matt Smith, senior director of Food for Good at PepsiCo. “Since 2009, we’ve been operating a U.S. nutrition program within PepsiCo called Food for Good that has delivered more than 30 million nutritious meals to children through afterschool and summer programs. In this time when millions of children are affected by school closures, it is a privilege to bring our scale and experience to this innovative partnership to serve our neighbors in need nationwide.”

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) continues to provide additional options and flexibilities to feed children during the COVID-19 outbreak. Some examples include:

• Issuing 21 nationwide waivers for child nutrition programs to allow for innovative methods of meal service and distribution during this unprecedented crisis pandemic;
• Launching the Meals 4 Kids site finder in both English and Spanish to help families across America find free meals for kids during the public health emergency; and
• Approving Pandemic-EBT in 19 states, which provides food assistance to families of children eligible for free or reduced-price meals dealing with school closures.
  

To learn more about FNS’s response to COVID-19, visit www.fns.usda.gov/coronavirus and follow on Twitter at @USDANutrition.

FNS administers 15 nutrition assistance programs that leverage American’s agricultural abundance to ensure children and low-income individuals and families have nutritious food to eat. FNS also co-develops the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which provide science-based nutrition recommendations and serve as the cornerstone of federal nutrition policy.

PepsiCo and McLane Global have been selected as the private sector partners in support of this initiative. PepsiCo generously provided $1 million in funding to the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty to support school districts and to identify the children most in need. McLane Global will continue its participation from the initial pilot of the program. Both companies have provided prior philanthropic support to hunger initiatives and Baylor University. Drayton McLane Jr., chairman of the McLane Group, serves on the Baylor University Board of Regents as Regent Emeritus and chair of Regent Emeriti. Baylor University also holds a comprehensive contract with PepsiCo for beverage pouring and representation rights on campus.

ABOUT THE BAYLOR COLLABORATIVE ON HUNGER AND POVERTY

The Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty brings together a large network of researchers and practitioners working on a national scale to find innovative hunger and poverty solutions through such projects as the Texas Hunger Initiative, the Global Hunger and Migration Project and the newly launched Hunger Data Lab. Collaborative scholars conduct interdisciplinary hunger and poverty research with local, state, national and global relevance. To learn more about the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty at www.baylor.edu/hungerandpoverty.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 18,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.