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 initial letter in late March announcing the program’s cancellation.
“As a smallish nonprofit, we can’t afford to pay for these meals on our own,” Elder told KQED last month, before the city called her to say the program had been reinstated and would begin delivering food to her site in late May.
Last summer, Elder said, as many as 50 children — from toddlers to middle schoolers — filed into her community center nearly every weekday 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 low-income families 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.
Nearly 75% of students in the Oakland Unified School District qualify for free or reduced lunch, and many regularly experience food insecurity.
The city’s announcement in March about canceling the program followed a City Council vote last December 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, including the summer food service.
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