For too many kids, school is the only place they can be guaranteed a good meal every day – a situation that is sure to get worse as more families get squeezed by skyrocketing prices on food and gas and rising unemployment.

In summer, though, those kids are not in school and so aren’t getting the nutrition they need. During the summer, fewer than one in five get the free or reduced price lunches they are entitled to year round.

School officials in many cities find ways to get kids to come to school during the summer just so they can be fed, and parks and recreation summer programs and church groups also help pick up the slack. Some schools even offer food during the summer to families who qualify, whether or not their kids are in summer school programs.

Some experts believe that lack of nutrition and idleness during the summer months account for the summer slide – the phenomenon by which children lose a great deal of their progress in school over the summer. Over time, low-income kids end up about two grade levels behind higher income children by the end of elementary school.

This Washington Post article details some of things being done in that city's suburbs. This is such a simple solution to one aspect of the cycle of poverty that I hope other cities do similar things. I hate thinking that some of the major victims of this economy are innocent kids.