Youth meals program restarts in Phila.

Dozens of children were snacking on peaches and eating turkey and cheese sandwiches from box lunches Tuesday when Philadelphia Managing Director Richard Negrin asked them: "How many of you guys have - because I know I have - gone to bed hungry?"

Several raised their hands.

The gathering at St. Thomas Aquinas School in South Philadelphia was arranged to promote the federal Summer Food Service Program, which was launched Monday in Philadelphia. It offers free meals to children under 18 at more than 1,000 sites in the city.

Fewer than one in five children who eat free or reduced lunches in Pennsylvania schools each year participate in the summer program, designed to feed low-income children when school is out. Seeing that gap, Philadelphia officials are targeting neighborhoods and distributing fliers in several languages in an effort to recruit more local families to use the service this summer.

They worry that low participation rates mean children in the city will go without critical nutrition when they aren't in school for lunch.

"They need that energy not just to run, but to listen and to learn," Negrin said. "When four out of five kids are not taking advantage of the program, that's a problem."

The Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger is hoping to increase participation this year with targeted outreach to neighborhoods with especially large gaps between school year and summer meal program participation.

The group will focus on the South Philadelphia, Hunting Park and Nicetown areas specifically, according to Noelle Dames, a community educator. Hoping to reach immigrant families, the group will also distribute a flier with information about the program translated into eight languages in addition to English.

One challenge to increasing participation, Dames said, is overcoming the stigma she said some children and teenagers may feel when going to eat a free lunch.

215-854-2819@MadelineRConway