Regional Food Bank expands summer meal kits to 18 districts

Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York expanded its Student Summer Meal Kit program to 18 school districts across nine counties, providing weekly food packages for more than 600 children as school meals disappear for the summer.

The USDA-funded program runs for about 10 weeks starting in late June and gives each child seven breakfasts and seven lunches each week, delivered to families’ homes. The food bank’s 2025 home-delivery pilot was the first of its kind in New York State, created to reach rural families that face food insecurity, rising grocery costs and long trips to traditional summer feeding sites.

The expansion was announced June 25 in Glen Spey, where local leaders pointed to the gap between school-year feeding and summer access. In Sullivan County, local leaders pointed to a child food insecurity rate of 20% and said 40% of students in one district qualify for free or reduced lunch. Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap data puts the food bank’s 23-county service area at a 12.2% overall food insecurity rate and a 15.4% child food insecurity rate. Feeding America’s 2025 release found that nearly 20% of U.S. children experience food insecurity and that more than 80% of the counties with the highest child hunger rates are rural.

In 2025, the food bank handed out more than 11,500 Summer BackPack bags to 2,000 children across 55 communities, while its school-year BackPack Program serves 5,300 students in more than 220 schools across 22 counties. This summer, the Backpack Program will reach about 2,000 more students in Sullivan, Orange and Ulster counties, including Eldred Central School District, Rockland Central School District, Sullivan West Central School District and Franklin Central School.

Sullivan 180 counts about 10,000 students receiving breakfast and lunch daily in Sullivan County public schools. The Regional Food Bank spent an additional $10,000 on diesel in May, a cost equal to about 30,000 meals.