What to know about summer food assistance programs for children, seniors in North Texas

When Madison Messinger was a kid, she looked forward to summer vacation each year. But after joining the North Texas Food Bank, she realized not every student sees summer as a time of exciting, carefree fun. 

“That really put it into perspective for me. There are kids out there who don’t want school to end because school is their one reliable, consistent source of nutritious food,” said Messinger, manager of programs at the food bank. 

Dallas-Fort Worth ranked third for food insecurity among the country’s metro areas, according to the most recent data from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap initiative. The report also revealed one in five children in Texas face hunger, placing the state 5th for most food insecure children in the country. 

During the summer months, childhood food insecurity becomes all the more difficult to navigate. 

Families whose children rely on free school breakfast and lunch during the school year are tasked with making up those 10 weekly meals for each child. “That’s pretty significant for some families,” Messinger said, whether it’s parents or even grandparents working to bridge this gap. “You might have a food insecure senior also trying to provide food for hungry, growing kids.”

The North Texas Food Bank operates food pantries and supports food assistance programs through a network of 500 partners across 12 counties in North Texas. These programs are funded primarily through individual donations and government grants. Residents can find their closest food bank on the NTFB website, www.ntfb.org, by using the non-profit’s zip code map. Users can adjust the radius for distance and see the available options. 

“Food is the building block to everything. If you want your kids to participate in sports or a summer camp, they can’t participate if they don’t have nutritional food. They can’t learn in summer school if they don’t have access to nutritional food,” Messinger said. “Hunger can really be in any zip code, any office and any classroom.” 

In the summer, the food bank supports three programs for families navigating summer hunger – around 25 school pantry sites,14 Food 4 Kids backpack distribution sites and Summer Meal Program sites in partnership with the Texas Department of Agriculture, Messinger said. 

Last summer, she added, the school pantry and backpack programs provided community members with over 500,000 meals. 

Many North Texas school districts distribute meals in the summer through the TDA’s Summer Meal Program. The North Texas Food Bank is one of the partners making this program possible. At these sites, most commonly schools, children 18 and younger are able to receive free meals with no eligibility or registration requirements. Students with disabilities 21 and younger are also able to receive meals at most sites. 

Dallas ISD kicked off their Summer Meal Program earlier this month, and United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, a community partner, hosted a kickoff event for the program on June 10. United Way’s public relations partner, Dandy Killeen, said that 850 families, Dallas ISD students and summer camp attendees and staff attended the kickoff. Over 750 meals were served to kids and adults, and 400 families received 12 to 18 pounds of groceries. 

These food distribution sites have varying hours and dates of operation, but most serve breakfast and lunch Monday through Thursday. More information is available on the Dallas ISD Food and Child Nutrition Services Summer Food Assistance Program website. 

Fort Worth ISD is also working with the TDA to provide summer meals to children in the area. More information regarding locations and hours of operation can be found on the district’s website. 

Other local districts participating in the Summer Meal Program include Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, Arlington ISD, Frisco ISD, Plano ISD and Grand Prairie ISD. 

The North Texas Food Bank runs two additional food assistance programs to supplement the needs of children in addition to their parents during the summer months. 

“There are a lot of other factors that exacerbate summer hunger. Not only are the kids not in school, so parents have to go out of their way to find school programming or summer meals, there’s also gas prices up and other factors impacting families in general. Making up those 10 additional meals is a heavier burden at this time,” she said. 

The food bank is seeing an increase in need at locations throughout the region, serving more patrons than they did during the height of the pandemic, Messinger said. 

During the school year, The North Texas Food Bank serves families by operating brick and mortar or drive through food pantries on school campuses. These school pantries provided nearly 2.6 million meals in the 2024-25 school year, according to Messinger. Roughly half stay open during summer months, Messinger said. 

Rather than ready-to-eat meals exclusively for children, pantries offer food for the whole family. 

“If there’s a kid at home who’s hungry, then there’s probably a parent or guardian at home who’s hungry, so the school pantry is really addressing that through family-sized programs,” Messinger said. 

At these school pantries, families receive roughly the equivalent of 35 meals in pantry supplies and produce once a month. There are no eligibility requirements. 

Families, Messinger said, are able to access pantries once a month or once a week, depending on the type. Kids participating in the School Pantry Program, Messinger said, receive roughly the equivalent of 35 meals in pantry supplies and produce. 

Messinger said that often, families might think receiving SNAP benefits disqualifies them from being able to come to food pantries, but this is not the case. 

“Sometimes families are receiving $20 of SNAP each month, so that is not buying all of your groceries. Seniors and families who receive SNAP can also participate in programs on top of food assistance,” Messinger said. 

The second of these programs, Messinger said, is Food 4 Kids, a service distributing backpacks with nearly 4 meals worth of food to children on Fridays in order to ensure they eat over the weekend. The program typically distributes these backpacks at schools throughout the academic year, but Messinger said the food bank adapts the program for the summer months, “meeting kids where they are” at summer school, summer camps and food pantries. 

Last year, more than 720,000 meals were provided through this program at 225 schools, serving roughly 5,500 children each week, Messinger said.

The backpacks contain four to five pounds of shelf-stable food, including graham crackers, peanut butter and trail mix. 

For seniors, the North Texas Food Bank offers the Commodity Supplemental Food Program in partnership with the TDA. Through this program, the food bank offers a monthly food box for seniors 60 and older who meet income requirements, Messinger said. The boxes include roughly 26 pounds of pantry staples, blocks of cheese and fruits and vegetables. Seniors can register on the food bank’s website.