On June 1, a favorite program once again returned to ICA Food Shelf: The Kids’ Summer Market. Each summer, we provide extra food to families with school-aged children. This program helps to fill the gap left by the lack of free and reduced-price lunch when kids are out of school in the summer.
ICA’s service area includes two public school districts: Hopkins and Minnetonka. These districts have a combined enrollment of 16,930 students. Of these, 3,249 are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch—a total of 19.2%. That’s nearly one in five children!
Our Kids’ Summer Market is simple. For every school-aged child (anyone between the ages of 4 and 18), a family can choose an additional five food items. To make it easy, we have set up an extra space at the food shelf with kid-friendly foods, including soup, macaroni and cheese, the fixings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, canned meals, and healthy snacks. We also have refrigerated options like carrots and hummus.
We love this program. It’s an easy way to help hungry kids in our community. In 2017, we served a total of 913 school-aged kids in 460 families. All told, this program supplied our neighbors with an extra 12,494 pounds of food!
We’re excited for another great summer. If you’d like to get involved, you can give financially, or drop off kid-friendly foods at our K-Tel location.
Thanks for helping to feed kids in our community!
ICA's Kids' Summer Market
