Meals Delivered To Students
With the recent postponement and ultimate cancellation of the 2019-20 school year, the McDonald County School District started its version of Meals on Wheels. The district is offering meals to be delivered to the homes of all students from all the attendance centers.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has a program called Meals on Wheels that offers meals to be delivered to qualified senior citizens.
With the recent postponement and ultimate cancellation of the 2019-20 school year, the McDonald County School District started its version of Meals on Wheels.
The district is offering meals to be delivered to the homes of all students from all the attendance centers. Meals can also be picked up at the attendance centers, but mostly the meals are delivered by volunteer bus drivers and helpers.
The meals are prepared at each of the attendance centers by the staff from OPAA, the district’s food service provider. The sack breakfasts and lunches are readied for delivery by volunteer staff members from their schools. The bus drivers and helpers then deliver the meals to the students’ residences.
At first, the deliveries were made daily, but that was changed after a couple of weeks to delivering only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The meals now include breakfast and lunches for two days, along with milk for all meals.
Tiffany Lilly, head of transportation for the school district, said the district is now running 33 routes, compared to the normal 51 routes when school is in session.
According to Mark Stanton, superintendent, all the miles which are driven are eligible for reimbursement from the state at the same rate as during the regular school year.
“We have had over 90 people a day helping every day,” Stanton said. “They include principals, teachers, bus drivers, custodians and community volunteers. I am so proud of how the school, the board and community have rallied to help support and provide for students and their families in our school district. These are unprecedented times and the spirit of family-first in our county has really shown. I can’t express into words how thankful and proud I am as your superintendent.”
Stanton said the program is growing in popularity the longer that school is out of session. He said in March, the district delivered 27,558 meals in the final eight days of the month. He said in the first week of April, that total was over 30,000.
“I am so proud of how the school, the board and community have rallied to help support and provide for students and their families in our school district. These are unprecedented times and the spirit of family-first in our county has really shown. I can’t express into words how thankful and proud I am as your superintendent.”
Mark Stanton
McDonald County Schools Superintendent
Last week on Monday, 10,000 meals were served and that grew to 10,306 by Wednesday, reaching over 2,500 out of the approximately 3,700 district students.
In addition, the buses are also delivering packets prepared by teachers to students who have no access to online lessons.
With the cancellation of the remainder of the school year, Stanton said the meals program will continue through April and May.
“Both meal service and our remote learning opportunities will continue through the end of the school year,” Stanton said.