Feed Your Brain

Feed Your Brain fights summer learning loss and summertime hunger.

The Feed Your Brain Rural Funding project provides funding and training to schools, community-based organizations, and native tribes running summer learning programs in rural areas of Washington state.  

In rural communities, resources for summer learning are limited. Without programs like these, students run the risk of falling behind and forgetting the skills they achieved in school. Moreover, low-income children in these communities go without the free and reduced meals they receive during the school year. Only 11% of these children have access to subsidized meals during the summer months.

Since 2001, School’s Out Washington has worked together with the Discuren Foundation to address summer learning loss and summertime hunger by funding programs in rural Washington. Feed Your Brain sites participate in the Summer Food Service Program, providing children with meals they might not otherwise have. Since 2001, Feed Your Brain has supported more than 200 summer literacy programs, which have served more than 432,000 meals and benefited approximately 23,000 children. 

In 2019, the Feed Your Brain Rural Funding program transitioned from a one-year funding cycle, to a three-year funding cycle, to provide greater support to our granted programs. In the same year, over 1,576 collective program hours were available to Washington’s rurally located youth.

2019—2021 Feed Your Brain cohort

After a competitive selection process, the following programs were selected to receive funding through the Feed Your Brain Rural Funding program.

  • Summer In the Park at Kiwanis Park, Camp Fire Walla Walla, Walla Walla
  • Valle Lindo Summer Program, Children’s Home Society of Washington, Walla Walla
  • East Adams Library Summer Learning Project, East Adams Library District, Ritzville/Lind/Washtucna
  • S.H.A.R.P. Kids, 21st CCLC Afterschool Program Grand Coulee Dam School District, Grand Coulee
  • Summer Garden Camp, Methow Valley School District & Classroom in Bloom, Winthrop
  • Mt. Adams Summer Program, Mt. Adams School District, White Swan
  • TC Kids Club, TenderCare Children’s Center, Clarkston
  • A-List Adventures, White Salmon Valley School District, White Salmon

Our partners