The Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) is in preparation for the 2014 Healthy Summer Nutrition Lunch Program. This program is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and administered by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). DFSS serves as the sponsor for the City of Chicago.

The Department encourages your organization to get involved this summer and become a summer nutrition host site. As a host site, your agency will be able to receive free daily meals for children and teens up to the age of 18 and 21 for children with disabilities on a daily basis. All meals served meet USDA Nutritional Guidelines. The most common types of FSS host sites are the following:

• Open Sites —Any child in the community may receive a meal without being enrolled in the program’s activities.
• Enrolled Sites — Children participate in the program’s activities and receive the meals
• Camp Sites —Offers a regularly scheduled food service as part of the day camp program

In 2013, over 220 summer nutrition sites served over 400,000 nutritious meals throughout Chicago, thereby reducing the number of hungry children in our poorest neighborhoods.

Children do not necessarily have to be enrolled in your program in order to receive the free meal but they must eat the food on site. We now have two area offices—South and West in order to make it easier for sites to handle the paperwork.

Please note the change in our 2014 application: it is a federal requirement for all agencies to report any serious deficiencies and placement on the National Disqualified List (NDL). Please mark the appropriate box under “Secion II Eligibility, C qualifying use” on the application.

If you are interested, please complete the attached application(s) and return the signed copy to:

Attn: Sharita Webb
Department of Family and Support Services
1615 W Chicago Ave 2nd fl
Chicago, IL 60622

2014 Summer Food Service Program Application

You may email the application to sharita.webb@cityofchicago.org. If you have further questions, please contact Summer Food Service Program at 312.743.1601 or Sharita Webb at 312.743.0258