The tens of thousands of Maine children whose parents can't afford to feed them are given free or reduced-price food at school during the academic year. A federal program subsidizes those meals for children whose families live in poverty, or very close to the poverty line. It's one of the most effective federal programs at fighting hunger.

But what happens when school lets out?

A lot of those kids go hungry.

A new study issued by the Food Research and Action Center, or FRAC, in Washington says that, of the 16.8 million low-income children in the country who get a subsidized breakfast or lunch during the regular school year, only 2.9 million of them got a subsidized meal during the 2008 summer vacation.

In Maine, FRAC reports, of the 50,500 children who got free and reduced lunch during the 2008 school year, only 7,800 of them got food through a summer program that year. That's only 15.5 percent of all eligible children in Maine.

While that's an abysmal statistic, the sad fact is that the percentage of kids in Maine who got a free or reduced-price lunch during last summer was actually higher than the previous year -- 15.5 percent in 2008 vs. 15.4 percent in 2007.

And Maine is smack in the middle of all the states when it comes to summer nutrition programs for children, coming in at number 26. The District of Columbia was first on FRAC's list, reaching a whopping 89 percent of children eligible for a subsidized federal food program. Last on the list was Mississippi, which reached only 4.4 percent of eligible children.

It's not that folks aren't trying. But it costs money to set up a summer food program, and in 1996, the federal government stopped distributing money to help schools, camps and other organizations set up or expand summer meal programs.

The amount of money the feds give to programs as reimbursement for the meals they serve was also cut in 1996, and a recent federal study determined that 72 percent of summer food program sponsors across the nation expected that federal reimbursements would not cover all their costs.

And finally, the feds have tightened up the standards for programs, which restricted the number of sites that were eligible to get the federal subsidy to feed kids during the summer. In other words, there weren's many programs after the restrictions were imposed.

What that all means is hungry children.

The percentage of children eligible for free or reduced meals in Kennebec County schools is 40 percent; in Somerset county, it's almost 54 percent. Those numbers belie the stark reality in some individual communities: In rural Canaan, the percentage of students in the elementary school who are eligible for the federal free and reduced-cost lunch program is almost 90 percent; in Hartland, it's almost 70 percent. And in virtually all Maine's cities and towns, the numbers of hungry children have grown during the recession.

Thousands of Maine children aren't getting the food they need, and could have, during the summer. So while it's bad that they're hungry in the first place, it's doubly bad that they could be fed -- if only the programs existed to get them the food they need.

The state Department of Education has just posted a list on the Web of sites where summer food programs operate: www.maine.gov/education/ sfs/sfsp.htm. That's an important step in helping spread awareness that there are programs out there where kids can get meals.

But much more needs to be done. In a state as strapped for money as Maine (and what other state isn't, these days?), this is a problem that falls squarely in the lap of the federal government. Only the feds can shake loose the funds to start new summer food programs, expand existing ones, reimburse programs more generously and even provide transportation for children who can't get to the places where food is being served.

The four members of Maine's congressional delegation are demonstrably committed to fighting childhood hunger. We urge Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Democratic Reps. Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree to continue that committment by pressing for reauthorization of all the federal nutrition programs this year, and to stress that summer nutrition programs need to be expanded and funded more generously.

Summer vacation should not be something feared by a child because they won't get the food they need.