Summer food program for West Tennessee kids could distribute twice as many meals this year

A program providing meals to children in West Tennessee during summer months is on track to deliver roughly double the number of meals it distributed last year. 

The Southwest Human Resource Agency’s Summer Nutrition Program provides boxes stocked with seven days of breakfast and lunch for children under the age of 18 in about 20 counties. The service starts in May and ends a week before school begins, typically in August. The program is funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service and the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

In the program’s first five weeks this year, the agency distributed roughly 630,000 meals — equivalent to the total for the entire summer in 2025.

Director of Food Services Solutions Tony Torres said the program is serving Obion, Weakley, Tipton and Crockett counties for the first time this year. Boxes are distributed at “grab-and-go” sites within each county, and the program offers home delivery in some counties. 

“Home delivery was something that I was really passionate about … I knew that every family that signed up, those children were going to get food every week,” Torres said, explaining that timing and transportation can sometimes be an issue for families.

But expanding home delivery options has proved to be challenging, particularly in more rural areas. 

In late June, the agency sent out an email stating that it would no longer offer home delivery in Tipton County. 

“I couldn’t get enough drivers,” Torres explained. The limited number of drivers who could deliver meals ended up working unsustainably long hours.

“There’s a lot of obstacles that we need to overcome,” he said.

Homes might not have a suitable place for drivers to leave the box of food, where it won’t be affected by weather or insects, for example.

“What I tried to maintain was the grab-and-go (model) in different sites where we couldn’t do the home delivery,” Torres said.

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Families that sign up to receive food are notified of pickup locations by email each week. If a household can’t make it, they can arrange for someone else to pick up their box for them. Torres said the agency tries to work with people who don’t have access to transportation to ensure they receive food.

Home deliveries have worked in Dyer, Weakley and Fayette counties, where drivers are able to make their stops within normal working hours.

The Southwest Human Resource Agency distributed 182 boxes of food at a Tractor Supply store in Tipton County on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to noon. 

On Thursday, Torres estimates the agency will distribute boxes to close to 1,000 children in Weakley County.

On Saturdays, about 2,200 boxes of food are picked up from grab-and-go locations in Savannah, Lexington, Chester County and the Tennessee Agriculture Center in Madison County. 

Torres said he’s the first to try having his own staff make home deliveries in the state. With more support from the state and other sponsors, Torres said it’s possible to work with a company like Amazon to handle home distribution. 

For now, the agency is sticking to what works: grab-and-go distribution for most, and home delivery where it makes sense.

“It’s disappointing sometimes to hear people complain when we’re trying our hardest to get it right,” Torres said. “There are obstacles that come with everything.”