This summer, the Campus Kitchen at University of Massachusetts Boston volunteers are going to camp – but not as campers.

A group of leadership team members, high school students, and volunteers from Texas will work alongside coordinator Chelsea Goulart to pilot a summer snacks project, simultaneously teaching and feeding underprivileged youth in the area who may need the supplemental nutrition to get through long days of learning at camp.

CKUMB’s summer commitment to feed comes in step with a report released by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). According to the AP, states cut funding for summer meal programs in 2009, while need peaked due to a weakening economy.

“The majority of these kids get school meals while school’s in session,” says Goulart. “The registration fee for one camp is $7, and often that fee is waived, so there is definitely a need.”

FRAC measures the effectiveness of summer meal programs by comparing the number of kids that receive school lunches while school is in session with the number of lunches that are provided by hunger relief programs like Campus Kitchens.

CKUMB will go one step beyond providing snacks to two summer camps; they’ll also use creative activities to help teach students about the value of fresh, nutritious food. Goulart put together lesson plans for both Camp Shriver, an inclusive summer camp for children with and without intellectual disabilities, and Project Alerta, which helps at-risk third through fifth graders test into some of Boston’s more elite public high schools.

Goulart says she plans to teach fruits, grains, salsa, and ice cream lessons while providing the camps with food for four weeks. Among the lessons she has lined up: foodie Simon Says, guess the fruit or vegetable (taped to your back), taste tests, salsa and ice cream-making.

Students, generally ages 8 to 12, will receive weekly snacks – 120 at Camp Shriver and 60 at Project Alerta – thanks to Goulart and her team.

“I hope that they’ll come away with the sense that they learned a little bit about nutrition,” says Goulart. “But also that they had fun and we provided memorable times for them.”

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