Children eligible for free or reduced-priced meals face heightened food insecurity during summer, when schools are out on break. Nutrition policy experts disagree about how to best ensure meal access. Approaches include in-person programs at schools or other community sites (congregate feeding), “grab-and-go” options where children and their families take food from a physical site, shipping meals to children through a meal box delivery program, and giving families money directly for food through Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards.

In August 2023, 1,313 rural households participating in the Meals-to-You summer meal box delivery program, which operated primarily in Alaska, New Mexico, and Texas, responded to a survey question about their preferences for future summer meal support.

The findings of this survey show that Meals-to-You households consider an EBT program the most preferable approach to summer meal access for children, followed closely by a summer meal delivery program. In-person programs and grab-and-go options are perceived as substantially less helpful. These findings are consistent across different levels of household rurality and states. The US Department of Agriculture and other stakeholders may benefit from doing similar surveys of other families that face summer meal difficulties to inform policy decisionmaking. A combination of approaches might best serve diverse family needs.