In 2005, Florida lawmakers passed the Ms. Willie Ann Glenn Children’s Summer Nutrition Act, which required that summer feeding program sites be located near schools in low-income neighborhoods. Summer feeding programs are designed to fill the hunger gap during the summer for children who ordinarily get free or reduced meals at school during the school year. However, soon after it was enacted, the new law was criticized because some summer feeding sites in low-income neighborhoods were too far away from a school to qualify, even though many children did not have transportation to get to an approved site.
Although Florida’s summer feeding program (now called Summer BreakSpot) is crucial for children in many families, it only reached about 8 percent of children in 2023 who normally get free or reduced price meals at school during the school year. This was due, in part, to the fact that not all families have transportation to participating locations, such as parks and libraries, especially those in rural areas. Transportation barriers are more likely to impact children of color in families with the lowest income.