Oakland Reverses Decision to End Summer Food Program, Will Offer Meals at Fewer Sites

Two days after Oakland confirmed it was gutting a program that has for years provided free daily lunches to thousands of kids during the summer, the city on Friday seemingly reversed course, saying it now planned to continue offering meals on a limited basis at some sites.

“Things are rapidly evolving with this program,” Jean Walsh, a spokesperson for the city administrator’s office, said in an email Friday afternoon. “The Summer Food Service Program will continue through the summer to a limited set of City sites, like recreation centers and libraries.”

The city is also in discussions to see if the program can be expanded, according to Walsh who did not provide any details on the number of sites that would be offering meals or what prompted the city to extend the program.

The turnaround comes shortly after the city, in a letter to the community and faith-based sites (PDF) that previously distributed the food, said it would “not be providing meals” through its Summer Food Service Program this year due to “severe city budget constraints,” a development KQED first reported earlier this week.

“We recognize this is a significant loss for the children and families who rely on these meals,” Michael Akanji, from the city administrator’s office, wrote in the letter.

The program was set to begin almost immediately after the Oakland Unified School District’s final day of classes on May 29 and run through the summer. Last summer, the program provided more than 100,000 free lunches to children as part of an effort to “bridge the meal gap throughout the summer months” when school meals are not available, according to the city.

Candice Elder, the executive director of The East Oakland Collective — a nonprofit that has provided meals to kids for the last two summers — was among a number of community site directors who told KQED they never received the city’s letter announcing the program’s cancellation, which the city said it sent in late March.

“As a smallish nonprofit, we can’t afford to pay for these meals on our own,” Elder told KQED Friday morning before the city reversed its decision.

As many as 50 children a day — from toddlers to middle schoolers — filed into her community center nearly every weekday last summer to receive lunch and snacks.

“Everything from sandwiches, pasta, chicken tenders — it was a pretty well-balanced meal,” she said. “There was always fruit. There was milk, carrots, celery.”

Elder said her deep East Oakland neighborhood is a food desert, where many families with low income lack access to healthy food.

“So this has been an awesome program. It’s been really beneficial to have these meals available and then the kids know that, guaranteed, Monday through Friday they can still eat,” she said. “I understand the issues regarding budget and funding at the city level, but at the same time, when you cut programs that impact families and children, what message are you sending?”

Nearly 75% of OUSD students (PDF) qualify for free or reduced lunch, and many regularly experience food insecurity.

Oakland has a long history of offering free food programs for children. In January 1969, the Black Panther Party launched the Free Breakfast for School Children Program at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in West Oakland, later expanding to other churches and community sites in Oakland and San Francisco’s lowest income neighborhoods. By the end of the year, the Panthers had set up kitchens in cities across the country, and claimed to have fed some 20,000 children (PDF).

Oakland’s initial move late last month to cancel the program followed a December city council vote to reallocate funds from its sugar-sweetened beverage tax, part of a frantic effort to close what was then a nearly $130 million budget shortfall. The tax, which voters approved in 2016, generates more than $7 million a year, a portion of which is intended to support youth health-related programs.

Oakland previously used about $200,000 of that revenue each year to supplement funding for the USDA-sponsored summer food program and cover administrative costs, but said the money was no longer available as a result of the reallocation.

“Without those funds, the City is unable to continue working with community partners and organizations to provide food in the summer of 2025,” Akanji wrote in the letter to partner sites.

The city administrator’s office did not respond to questions about when it made the decision to cancel the program or why it waited four months after the council’s budget vote to inform partner sites.

“If the city had told us a month ago, people could have applied for [other] funding, but they didn’t,” said Maria Alderete, executive director of Community Kitchens, an Oakland nonprofit meal provider. She said she learned about the program’s cancellation from KQED’s article.

“In not communicating, not being transparent, the city is really jeopardizing the program in terms of feeding kids,” she said. “It’s just disappointing that the city of Oakland would drop the ball.”

Given the “dumpster fire that is the city of Oakland budget,” Alderete said the city should really start handing programs like this over to nonprofits to administer.

“My gut is that it wasn’t really about the money itself in terms of a budget decision,” she said. “It was more about the fact that City Hall is gutted right now. They can’t administer contracts. They can’t actually pay people the invoices.”

Alderete said she was still determined to find money to make meals for Oakland kids this summer — with or without help from the city.

“Not feeding our kids this summer is not an option,” she said.