D.C. Youth Enjoy Milk with Summer Meals
Over summer vacation, a partnership between Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association and the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education ensured students in the Washington, D.C., area received ice-cold milk with their free summer meals.
The D.C. Free Summer Meals Program continues to lead the nation in providing healthy food to low-income children when school is out, reaching 86 percent of eligible children. In 2006, the District served healthy meals, including milk, to more than 28,000 children daily.1
To ensure that milk is stored at a safe temperature and served to children ice-cold as they like it, Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association provided milk coolers with “got milk?®” messaging to summer feeding program sites throughout D.C.
“The new milk coolers are great because they have a large capacity, and it is easy to remove the milk through the top flaps, while still keeping the milk cold,” said Abdur-Rahim Muhammad of the Hung Tao Choy Mei Leadership Institute in northwest D.C. Tegest Mengesha, director of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church program site expressed her gratitude for the new cooler because “it helps keep milk cold and enjoyable for the kids to drink.”
1. “Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation” report, Food Research and Action Center, July 2007.