When school is out for the summer, many families lose more than access to school meals.
They also lose the regular routines, relationships, communication channels, and trusted systems that help connect students and caregivers to support during the school year.
This spring, Kirkland Community Foundation brought together local nonprofit partners, school leaders, service providers, and community organizations to better understand summer food access for students and families in the Lake Washington School District.
We are especially grateful to Eastside Pathways for helping facilitate this work and create space for thoughtful, honest, and practical conversation. We are also grateful to 
for helping support these conversations. Their partnership helped bring the right people into the room so we could listen across organizations and better understand how summer food access is actually working for families in our community.
This work was made possible because local partners came together to share what they are seeing, what families are experiencing, and where coordination could make a difference.
We want to thank the partners and community organizations who participated in or helped inform these conversations, including:
Each partner brought a different view of the challenge, from food distribution and family outreach to school-based support, housing instability, transportation, culturally responsive food, and the practical realities of reaching families during the summer months.
Together, these conversations helped us better understand that summer food access is not only about whether food exists. It is about whether families can find it, trust it, get to it, and use it when they need it.
“We can’t do what we do, serving families and serving students and putting them at the center… without the community.”
— Catherine Cruz, LWSD
The biggest takeaway was clear: summer food access is not simply a question of whether food exists.
The bigger question is whether families can find it, trust it, get to it, and use it when they need it.
A family may know help is available but not have transportation. A caregiver may be working during distribution hours. A parent may not know which door to open, or may be afraid that asking for help could create other risks. Some families may be experiencing food insecurity for the first time and may not know where to begin.
For many families, the issue is not the absence of support. It is the distance between available support and real access. That distance may be geographic, logistical, cultural, linguistic, emotional, or based on trust.
Partners shared that transportation, work schedules, language barriers, stigma, immigration concerns, fear, and unfamiliarity with service systems can all prevent families from accessing support, even when resources are technically available.
They also named the operational realities behind food access, including storage, food preparation space, safe food handling, delivery capacity, staffing, and volunteer support.
In other words, this is not just about food. It is about whether our community has the systems, communication, and flexibility to make food support reachable and usable for families who need it.
[At Kindering, we may not provide] food access… But we support those families who are facing food insecurity. So that’s where I need and rely on these relationships that I have with community partners to help support them. It takes everybody,…to help support these families, but you have to know where those resources are and have those connections to be able to send families there.”
— Jill Clacy, Kindering
One thing we heard again and again is that outreach needs to happen before summer begins.
During the school year, families are still connected to school newsletters, counselors, family advocates, food programs, and other trusted communication channels. Once summer starts, it becomes harder to reach families, update information, answer questions, and help people navigate support.
That is why our community must share information early, often, and through multiple trusted messengers.
We are encouraging partners to link to existing food resource pages, share SUN Bucks information, and help create multiple doors into the same network of support. No single list will be perfect, but together we can make it easier for families to find help.
Kirkland Community Foundation is not trying to become a food provider. Our role is to listen, connect partners, and help move resources toward the gap
s our community has identified.
Based on what we heard, we are exploring practical ways to strengthen the existing food access network, including:
Kirkland Community Foundation is raising funds to support summer food access for students and families in our community.
Your gift will help us move resources quickly and thoughtfully to local partners working directly with families. Support may help provide grocery cards, delivery support, outreach materials, translation, or other flexible tools that help families find and use the food resources that already exist.
This is neighbors helping neighbors in a practical way.
A gift before June 1 will help us get funds into the hands of local partners early, so they can serve families during the summer months when support is needed most.
Give today to support summer food access for local students and families.
Summer food access is a community challenge, and it will take a community response.
We are grateful to every partner who participated in these conversations and to every donor who helps turn what we heard into action.
Together, we can help make sure more students and families can find, trust, reach, and use the support available to them this summer.
Founded in 2014, the Kirkland Community Foundation is a local community foundation supporting nonprofits across Kirkland and the Eastside. We connect donors, nonprofits, and community priorities through grants, partnerships, and local giving that strengthen our parks, people, and shared future. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 46‑4931717), we invest in thriving nonprofits, visible community impact, and trusted local leadership.
KCF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
EIN 46-4931717
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