Marketing Plan Template Summer Feeding Program

This marketing plan is a template and should be customized to your specific needs and goals.

Background Every year, when the school year ends, children who rely on school meals served through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs are at serious risk of going hungry. This is where the Federal Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) comes in and helps bridge the hunger gap.

According to FRAC’s Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation 2009 study, in July 2008, the Summer Nutrition Programs served lunch to 2.9 million children on an average day. This means that only one in six low-income children who ate a school lunch during the regular 2007-08 school year were reached by the Summer Nutrition Programs.

Add background information here that is specific to your summer feeding operation such as the number of feeding sites and number of children served.

Objectives Your marketing objective must be tied to a business objective. An example is to drive awareness of the benefits of summer feeding programs and increase participation in the Summer Food Service Program at the following feeding sites.

Please feel free to be more specific: like increase participation by x% or x children for the duration of the program at the following feeding sites. Another objective could be to expand your program to x new feeding sites.

You should monitor your objectives while your program is running as it will help you determine whether you need to increase or change your promotional tactics.

Target audience Primary Audience: Students and Parents

Add any relevant information like which schools, grade levels. It is essential to engage children because they will be your greatest spokespeople. If they get excited about the food served or activities available they will tell other kids and spread the new of your program through word of mouth. This will help you increase and maintain your participation numbers.

Secondary Audience: Community at large including allied groups such as Boys and Girls Clubs, Recreation Centers and Church groups

Add any relevant information.

Summer Feeding Toolkit – Marketing Plan Template SNA - 2010 Strategies and Tactics Here are some examples of strategies and tactics you may wish to use. Please customize this to meet your specific goals and needs.

Strategy Drive summer food service program participation for the x weeks prior to the end of school and the duration of the program by engaging students and parents with information about the foods served, times and location of feeding sites and scheduled activities. If applicable, it is also important to emphasize that meals are free to all children.

Promotional Tactics The promotional possibilities are endless, and a few are listed below. It is important to promote you program every way you can and as much as you can within the limits of your time and budget.

 Create posters to hang in your cafeteria promoting your program before school ends for the summer.  Talk to students in assembly about the location of summer feeding sites, any fun activities that will happen and the menu that will be served.  Work with teachers, school nurses and guidance counselors to help make kids aware of the program  Send home flyers and fact sheets to parents about your program. Visit www.schoolnutrition.org/summer to download customizable flyers, fact sheets and activity sheets  Give your program a catchy name and promote the foods to be served  Talk to parents at PTA/PTO meetings  Work with site managers such as recreation site managers or church leaders to promote the program and distribute flyers  Talk to community leaders and provide them with flyers to distribute so they can pass on the message about your program  Send out a press release to local media outlets

Media Strategy - Write a press release in order to alert the media to specific events in your school or district. USDA has a template press release available in the Administrative Guidance for Sponsors (http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Summer/library/handbooks.html) which provides a good starting point for you to customize with logistical details such as site locations and times of service - Approach specific media outlets (like local newspaper(s), radio stations, TV stations etc…) - Invite the media to cover a specific event such as a site opening or a site which has the most activity.

For more information, SNA has summer feeding taking points and tips on working with the media available at www.schoolnutrition.org/summer.

Summer Feeding Toolkit – Marketing Plan Template SNA - 2010 Timing - Determine key dates such as the end of school, start and end dates of your summer feeding program. - Decide the date you plan to start promoting your program (it must be while school is still in session). - Schedule dates for other marketing and promotional activities

Budget If there is a budget for this promotion, this section is where you should indicate how the budget should be spent.

Research and Evaluation Did the program work? Evaluate your results against your initial objectives. You can even conduct a survey to better understand how students or parents reacted to the promotion. Where can you improve our marketing plan and overall program implementation for next year?

Next Steps This section should be customized based on your specific needs, but here are some possible next steps: - Present your Summer Feeding Marketing Plan to school nutrition staff and key stakeholders in order to obtain buy-in. - Download customizable flyers and activity sheets from www.schoolnutrition.org/summer - Start creating marketing materials such as posters and flyers - Create a press release in order to alert the media to specific events - Start implementing your plan

Summer Feeding Toolkit – Marketing Plan Template SNA - 2010