Oakland Halts Free Summer Meals for Children Amid Severe Budget Shortfall​

A city of Oakland program that has long provided free meals to thousands of children during the summer will not be offered this year due to “severe city budget constraints,” officials confirmed this week.

In a recent letter to more than 45 community and faith-based sites throughout Oakland that previously distributed the meals, the city said it would end its Summer Food Service Program due to a lack of funds.

The move follows a vote by the Oakland City Council in December to reallocate funds from its sugar-sweetened beverage tax, amid the city’s struggle to close a nearly $130 million budget shortfall. Revenue from the tax, which voters approved in 2016, previously supplemented funding for the USDA-sponsored food program and covered its administrative costs.

“Without those funds, the City is unable to continue working with community partners and organizations to provide food in the summer of 2025,” Michael Akanji, a city analyst who helped coordinate SSBT funds, wrote in the letter.

The summer food program was slated to begin after the Oakland Unified School District’s final day of classes on May 29. Last year, the program provided more than 100,000 free, hot lunches to children in an effort to “bridge the meal gap throughout the summer months,” according to the city.

“We recognize this is a significant loss for the children and families who rely on these meals,” Akanji wrote.

He encouraged partner sites to seek support from food banks and local businesses or apply directly for USDA support.

Oakland previously used about $200,000 of sugar tax revenue each year to run the food program and separately paid two full-time employees and several part-time staff to manage it, according to a city spokesperson.

Nearly 75% of OUSD students — about 33,000 — qualify for free or reduced lunch.

“This is a very, very critical and important program for us,” said Michael Altfest, a spokesperson for the Alameda County Community Food Bank, which has referred families to summer food distribution sites for the past 15 years.

Altfest said he heard about the elimination of the food program from a community partner, but his organization had yet to receive any information from the city itself.

Roughly 1 in 4 residents in Alameda County experience some level of food insecurity, he said, noting that children are the single largest group that food banks serve.

“If you think of a low-income family, they often depend on school meals. So when schools are out, that is typically when we will start to see spikes in seasonal need,” Altfest said. “That’s why this program has been so enormously beneficial to the families that we serve.”

The elimination of the program makes it “almost certain” that the already stretched food bank will see a significant increase in demand this summer, likely forcing it to dip further into reserves, he said.

“It really is one of the most uncertain, worrisome times that I’ve ever seen [here],” Altfest said, noting the food bank’s steep decline in contributions in recent years, as well as the massive cuts that Congress is currently considering making to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “Having this happen is like salt in the wound.”

Parks Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Oakland’s Pill Hill neighborhood, has been serving lunches to children through the program for the past three summers. Many kids come through their day care centers, said Rev. Dr. Rosalynn Brookins, the church’s senior pastor.

“I was devastated by the news that we would no longer have the opportunity to feed children any meals because of the cuts that we’re now facing,” she said. “This means that our city is going to have thousands of children at risk for hunger based on this cut.”

Brookins said she’s praying for the city to reverse its decision and is now looking into other options to continue offering some food services to kids this summer.

“I’m asking for the council to reconsider, and I’m asking everyone in this community to stand up for the voiceless and the marginalized and the oppressed,” she said. “No child should go to bed hungry at night. No children should have to wonder if they’re going to have a decent meal.”