Technical Assistance

In 2023, the Baylor Collaborative completed its fifth and final year of the Meals-to-You Project. Meals-to-You was a joint demonstration project with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Baylor Collaborative in which children in rural America without access to a traditional summer meal site receive shelf-stable, nutritious food delivered to their homes during the summer break. Over the past five years, this program served more than 2.5 million meals to nearly 31,000 children in school districts across Texas, Alaska, Utah and New Mexico. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the program quickly scaled up to expand access, more than 270,000 children received nearly 40 million meals across 43 states and Puerto Rico between April and September 2020. 

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Evaluations by the Urban Institute have shown that the Meals-to-You program was as effective in reducing food insecurity over the summer months as the National School Lunch Program. The success of the Meals-to-You program contributed to new federal legislation in 2023 that now allows families in rural America to have access to summer meals through home delivery programs like Meals-to-You and other convenient options. 

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As you consider whether a non-congregate, mailed meal box program is right for your community, please utilize the resources you find on this webpage! The free online Technical Assistance Handbook and companion training video series will guide you through the planning stages all the way to implementing and operating your mailed meal box program. We are also offering one-on-one Technical Assistance options with our expert team.