Programs offer free summer nutrition
Groton, Norwich and New London serve meals to kids 18 and under at dozens of sites
Groton — Kids halted their games of four square and baseball at Washington Park just before noon on Friday to get in line for smoothies. The combination of frozen blueberries, bananas and strawberries — along with kale, albeit undetectable on the tongue — satisfied both taste buds and nutritional needs.
Ari Johnson, 10, eagerly got back in line for a second smoothie, while others licked up the residue around their purple-tinted lips.
Each of the 100-plus kids, there for the City of Groton summer recreation program, then got in line to get his or her lunch: milk, a sandwich, a banana, cauliflower and Rice Krispies Treats.
Washington Park is one of 17 sites throughout Groton, with three new sites this year, that offer free breakfast and lunch to kids ages 18 and younger. Elsewhere in Southeastern Connecticut, there are 20 locations in New London, and 24 in Norwich and Sprague. Offering the program is optional for school districts, meaning the sites across the state tend to come in clusters.
Summer meal programs are funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Staff from FoodCorps — a food service member of AmeriCorps, a network of local, state and
Washington Park is one of 17 sites throughout Groton, with three new sites this year, that offer free breakfast and lunch to kids ages 18 and younger. Elsewhere in Southeastern Connecticut, there are 20 locations in New London, and 24 in Norwich and Sprague.
national programs that serve communities across the country through public, nonprofit, faith-based and volunteer organizations, according to its website — served the smoothies; they bounce between meal sites to taste test nutritious foods.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, toured the Washington Park site with Groton City Mayor Keith Hedrick on Friday and voiced concern about what President Donald Trump’s budget would do to the program.
Trump’s proposal, put forth on May 23, eliminates AmeriCorps and cuts the USDA budget by 20 percent. Courtney said he feels the latter is “kind of amazing, considering the president’s support came from rural America.”
In observing the food-service action, the congressman noted that there’s a real need for summer food service programs, that it’s not just a make-work initiative.
The Groton Public Schools food service staff brought the program to Groton in 2014 and started with 12 sites, said Ernie Koschmieder, food service director.
Staff in Groton served roughly 38,000 meals last year, he said, and the goal is 45,000 this year. The program began on June 19, and food service employees served 425 more meals the first week than they did in the first week last year.
Along with the benefit of providing free food to children, the program employs school food service workers during the summer. Koschmieder and the eight employees working with him are able to hit all 17 sites Monday through Friday because meal start times are staggered.
Most meals are served in a half-hour window, with breakfast starting between 8 and 9:40 a.m., while lunch begins between 11:15 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Rotating breakfast options include yogurt with fresh fruit, cereal and pancakes.
Koschmieder is big on the farm-to-school approach, getting fruit and lunch ingredients from Whittle’s Willow Spring Farm in Mystic and Hunts Brook Farm in Quaker Hill.
The food is prepared at the central kitchen at West Side Middle School. Staff then pack the items into coolers and hit the same two sites each day.
One such employee is Debora Maurice, who serves meals at 126 Litton Ave. and Bluff Point. The latter is one of three new sites this year, along with Bill Memorial Library and Poquonnock Plains Park.
Maurice said Bluff Point was slow starting out but she now gets 26-29 kids, some of whom show up before she arrives at noon.
She and other servers encounter plenty of first-time customers and parents who get food because they just happened to be at one of the sites, many of which are at schools, parks and playgrounds. But there’s also a lot of regulars.
“When you see the same families or the same children come down every day for lunch and sit down at one of my sites, that’s when we really get that gratitude feeling, like wow, we really are making a difference,” Koschmieder said.
Norwich Public Schools also approaches the program with an eye on nutrition, serving carrots, oranges and applesauce with lunch.
Janelle Flores, a mother of five kids ages 2 to 14, has been bringing her children to the sites to get food intermittently for years. She came prepared to Uncas School on Friday afternoon, laying a blanket on a shady spot of the parking lot and then placing the food on a wooden bed tray.
And with the school’s playground abutting the parking lot, her kids — and the other kids there — could then go play and enjoy the sunny summer day.
For a map of summer food service program sites across Connecticut, visit bit.ly/mealsmap.