First graders at Wea Ridge Elementary in Lafayette eat lunch on Aug. 16, 2012. Indiana will no longer participate in a program to feed schoolchildren through direct family payments during summer vacation. (FILE PHOTO: Elle Moxley/StateImpact Indiana)
Last summer, hundreds of thousands of Hoosier families who qualify for food benefits and reduced-price school meals got a summertime boost: $120 per child monthly for food while schools were closed.
But relief for those 669,000 children may only have been a one-time blip. Indiana won’t participate in a federal summer food service program, known as SUN Bucks, in 2025.
“We made a great step forward last summer in giving families the ability to purchase the food that they need for their kids when they need it. And it just feels like a giant leap backwards to take this program away that the federal government is still operating and we could opt into it,” said Kate Howe, the executive director of the Indy Hunger Network. “But Indiana has decided that they don’t want to.”
Awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, SUN Bucks can be combined with free summertime meals and meals-to-go programs to ensure schoolchildren don’t go hungry. School breakfasts and lunches are often the only reliable source of nutrition for many students, and they lose access when the academic year ends.
Thirteen states opted out of the SUN Bucks in 2025, mostly those that didn’t participate in 2024. Indiana, however, has withdrawn after a year of participation, the state confirmed.
Indiana notified the federal oversight agency that it wouldn’t be participating on Feb. 20, 2025, but didn’t rule out future years, according to a letter signed by the deputy director of the Family and Social Services Administration and housed on the Department of Education’s website. Plans were due to USDA by Feb. 15.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle messaged three state entities on Monday but didn’t receive requested details — including why the state withdrew from the program and the cost to administer it — before the publication deadline.
“While SUN Bucks will be discontinued for 2025, students in low-income areas of the state can still receive free summer meals at approximately 1,000 locations (schools and other organizations) through the USDA’s Summer Food Service Program,” wrote Courtney Bearsch, a spokeswoman for Indiana’s Department of Education.
Bearsch pointed families toward the USDA’s Site Finder Map and Hunger Hotline to identify participating locations. The hotline is accessible Monday through Friday between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern Time at 1-866-3-HUNGRY (1-866-348-6479) for English speakers or at 1-877-8-HAMBRE (1-877-842-6273) for Spanish speakers.
Securing food in the summer
While in school, children can qualify for free or reduced price breakfasts and lunches. According to state data obtained by the Indiana Youth Institute, nearly half of Indiana’s students qualified for free or reduced meals in 2024, or more than 509,000 children.
However, the state wasn’t able to tell the Indiana Capital Chronicle why USDA reported 160,000 additional students participated in the SUN Bucks program.
Summer food service programs, in one form or another, have existed for decades. Traditionally, children would need to be on-site to receive meals and wouldn’t be permitted to take food home.
But the COVID-19 pandemic made large gatherings dangerous, forcing a pivot to grab-and-go meals and, eventually, a direct financial boost to families receiving food benefits.
The initial phase of the direct-to-family program was tied to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It increased funding for participating families using Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, or EBT. Following the end of the public health emergency on May 11, 2023, the federal government phased the pandemic-era program out in favor of SUN Bucks — which also go onto EBT cards but are more narrowly tailored depending on family circumstances.
In Indiana, SUN Bucks were distributed to unique summertime accounts. According to the USDA, 669,000 children between the ages of 7 and 18 years old were served by the program in 2024 — though students were more likely to grab lunch than breakfast.
“Obviously, that provides a lot of flexibility,” observed Howe. “If they have allergies or dietary restrictions, having that money to purchase the food that works for your family is really important. I have a child with a peanut allergy … so if my son went to a meal site where they were serving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he wouldn’t be able to eat that.”
Howe’s organization doesn’t directly participate in summertime food programming, which routinely relies on local school districts or local community centers, but does advertising and outreach.
While community centers and participating schools will still offer sit-down or grab-and-go meals, those may be harder for some families to access.
“Maybe you have 13-year-olds that you feel comfortable leaving home alone during the summer when you’re at work, but you don’t feel comfortable having them walk around the community to access meals at a free meal site,” said Howe, naming pedestrian safety as a concern.
“In rural areas … there might be one meal site per county. And for those you might have to walk or bike many miles in order to get the free meal,” Howe continued. “So those meals just become inaccessible to a lot of kids.”
A map from the Indiana Department of Education shows that the sites are clustered around population centers, potentially shutting out students in rural areas. Outside of cities, most options are tied to local school corporations.
The loss of the program was a setback for advocates like Howe working to feed Indiana’s hungry, especially in the face of economic uncertainty.
“The cost of groceries keeps rising. It’s getting harder and harder to buy those foods that your family needs,” concluded Howe. “Just having that little bit of help really makes a difference to families that are struggling.”
This map depicts school nutrition programs, including ones that occur during the summer vacation. Please visit https://idoenutrition.com/ for the interactive version.
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Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
