Holiday Clubs as Community Organizations

• Date: 01 May 2020
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716220917657

917657ANN
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYHoliday Clubs
research-article2020
Holiday clubs—publicly or privately operated organiza-
tions that provide child care services and healthy food
to disadvantaged children in the United Kingdom (UK)
when schools are not in session—are increasing in
number. We know a good deal about the effectiveness
of the clubs in terms of nutrition-related outcomes, but
little is known about the anti-poverty resources these
holiday clubs may provide. The possibility that club
funding may be centralized through the national gov-
Holiday Clubs ernment requires a better understanding of holiday
club resources. This study describes the range of
as Community resources that holiday clubs deliver and reports on how
these resources are acquired and brokered by club staff
and volunteers. We use data from seventeen clubs
Organizations operating in disadvantaged communities in North East
England during the summer of 2017, and find that
clubs deliver an assortment of anti-poverty resources
that are often tied to staff (personal and professional)
networks.
Keywords: holiday hunger; food poverty; food secu-
rity; UK food policy
By
PAUL B. STRETESKY,
MARGARET ANNE
DEFEYTER,
Many UK families with school-age children
MICHAEL A. LONG,
face “holiday hunger” because they lack
ZEIBEDA SATTAR,
adequate levels of healthy and nutritious food
and
during the school holidays (Defeyter, Graham,
EILISH CRILLEY
and Prince 2015; Garthwaite 2016; Graham
et al. 2018; Graham et al. 2016). Low-paid
work, high levels of unemployment, and inad-
equate social benefits have intensified holiday
Paul B. Stretesky is associate director of the Healthy
Living Lab and professor of social sciences at
Northumbria University Newcastle. He has authored
six books and more than 100 articles and book chapters
on inequality and social justice. He currently lectures
on research methods and statistics.
Margaret Anne Defeyter is director of the Healthy
Living Lab and professor of psychology at Northumbria
University Newcastle. She has authored more than
ninety articles and book chapters on school feeding and
physical activity programs.
Correspondence: paul.stretesky@northumbria.ac.uk
DOI: 10.1177/0002716220917657
ANNALS, AAPSS, 689, May 2020 129

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THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
hunger and led local governments, charities, and religious organizations to estab-
lish holiday clubs to help families feed children during the summer school holi-
day (Mann et al. 2018). While summer programs for disadvantaged youth have
existed in the UK for some time, holiday clubs are a relatively new type of
organization. These clubs are similar to Summer Food Service Program sites
funded by the United States Department of Agriculture that guide regulations
concerning staff, operating times, nutritional requirements, and meal prepara-
tion. In the UK, holiday clubs are managed locally, rather than centrally as is the
case in the United States, making summer food provision for children more
uncoordinated and less uniformly prescriptive (Nord and Romig 2006).
Because holiday clubs are primarily associated with food provision, nearly all
of the existing research in this area focuses on food-related outcomes and policy
(Caplan 2016; Defeyter, Graham, and Prince 2015; Graham et al. 2016; Lambie-
Mumford and Sims 2018; Long et al. 2018; Machin 2016; Purdam, Garratt, and
Esmail 2016). Current studies of holiday clubs provide interesting insights into
food insecurity, food poverty, and food justice, but not into general anti-poverty
services that the clubs may provide.
The UK’s national government is currently considering the funding of holiday
clubs (i.e., by the Department for Education), and a move toward central funding
will likely drive important key performance indicators that the clubs must meet.
Given that extant research has not investigated the possibility that clubs provide
general anti-poverty services not related to food, changes in funding may end up
causing significant disruptions. The aim of this study is to expand our understand-
ing of holiday clubs by (1) describing the different resources that holiday clubs
provide and (2) examining whether and how club staff and volunteers acquire
and broker resources.
We draw upon Mario Small’s investigation of U.S. childcare centers to situate
our study of holiday clubs (2009; see also Small 2006; Small, Jacobs, and
Massengill 2008). We are aware of no existing studies that look at holiday clubs
from this unique perspective, and we organize the remainder of our analyses into
four sections. The first section draws on Small’s (2009) theoretical approach to
Michael A. Long is an associate professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University. He has published four
books and more than seventy journal articles and book chapters in the areas of food insecurity and envi-
ronmental degradation.
Zeibeda Sattar (Zeb) is a senior research assistant in the Healthy Living Lab. She has extensive
experience in mixed methods research and currently lectures on undergraduate and post-
graduate public health modules.
Eilish Crilley is a PhD student at The Northumbria University Newcastle and part of the
Healthy Living Lab. She has previous experience evaluating holiday feeding programs.
NOTE: An earlier version of this article was presented at the Autonomous University of
Barcelona (Spain), February 7–8, 2019, in the “Who Cares? Workshop.” We would like to
thank Professors Miranda Lubbers and Hugo Valenzuela García for inviting us to participate
in that workshop and for their encouragement and support during the revision of our manu-
script. We would also like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers who provided insightful
comments and suggestions. This research was funded by Children North East and the North
East Child Poverty Trust.

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HOLIDAY CLUBS
131
frame the organization, network, and neighborhood effects literatures. That
review covers basic concepts and ideas about the potential role of clubs as hetero-
geneous organizations (i.e., organizations that provide a number of different
community resources) that improve the well-being of residents in disadvantaged
communities. In the second section we describe the study’s data sources and
analytical methods. Third, we present qualitative findings detailing how club staff
and volunteers help to provide and broker a variety of resources for families with
school age children. Finally, we conclude by suggesting that any national attempts
to direct the composition of club resources must be carefully considered.
Theoretical Perspective
The ability of the poor to access resources is critical to their well-being (Amato
and Zuo 1992; Bradshaw 2016; Bratt 2002; Nordenmark and Strandh 1999;
Olson 1999; Sampson 2003; Stiehm 2000). However, poor individuals and resi-
dents in disadvantaged communities have fewer interactions with organizations
that promote well-being than do more affluent individuals and residents in
wealthier communities (Jencks and Mayer 1990; Wilson 2011, 2012). While the
traditional literature on the relationship among neighborhoods, poverty, and
community organizations is important to understanding well-being, it is not with-
out limitations. Over the past decade, contemporary research on the potentially
complex relationship between neighborhood effects and organizations has devel-
oped. This new line of work provides important additional theoretical specifica-
tion about the impact of neighborhoods on organizations. For instance, Small and
colleagues have shown that access to organizational resources depends on more
than just the levels of neighborhood poverty, but also on other organizations
within and outside of the neighborhood (Small 2006; Small and McDermott
2006; Small, Jacobs, and Massengill 2008; Small 2009).
Small (2006) has pointed out that local organizations in poor communities
may, despite levels of poverty, improve community well-being because they can
act as institutional resource brokers under the right set of circumstances (Small,
Jacobs, and Massengill 2008). Small (2006, 277) defines institutional resource
brokers as “those organizations that transfer resources to individuals.” We rely on
Small’s (2006, 277–78) assumptions that institutional resource brokers (1) are
networked with other neighborhood institutions; (2) reflect a variety of interests
of staff, volunteers, and clients; (3) experience a variety of pressures, such as
those from clients, the community, local government, political figures, and
funders; and (4) are “a site of social interaction.”
Small’s arguments concerning resource brokers and neighborhood effects are
situated within the organizational ecology literature (Carroll and Hannan 2004;
DiMaggio and Powell 1983), which directs attention to an existing organizational
population as a way of better understanding organizational forms (i.e., what
organizations look like), as well as the poverty adaptation literature that demon-
strates how the poor can, in particular circumstances, build and rely upon social

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ties and support networks to attenuate problems created by living in poverty
(Belle 1983; González de la Rocha 1994; Mazelis 2017; Stack 1975; Valenzuela-
García et al. 2014). Following Small’s (2009) research, we propose that holiday
clubs, because of their links to other...