In Oakland, about 20,000 schoolchildren are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals under a federal program that subsidizes lunch (and in many cases, breakfast) for children from low-income families. Those families face a dilemma when school is out for the summer: how to make up for those meals until classes begin again.
The answer comes in the form of a couple of closely related programs that offer free or low-cost summertime meals: the Summer Food Service Program and the Seamless Summer Option (the latter an extension of the National School Lunch Program). Together these programs, carried out in conjunction with state and local governments and school districts, feed millions of children up to age 18 across the United States. The summer programs operate in every county in the Bay Area.
If you're looking for a summer meal site, or know someone who is, here are links to the programs in each Bay Area County:
Alameda (Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro, Fremont)
Contra Costa (Richmond, Martinez, Concord, Pittsburg, Antioch, etc.)
Marin (Sausalito, Marin City)
Napa (Napa, St. Helena, Calistoga)
San Francisco
San Mateo (East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Redwood City, Daly City)
Santa Clara (San Jose, Gilroy, Mountain View, etc.)
Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, Watsonville)
Solano (Vallejo, Fairfield, Suisun City, etc.)
Sonoma (Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Petaluma, Healdsburg, Guerneville, etc.)