Feeding a need

Summer food program in Walls offers daily hot lunch

Hot wings are 12-year-old Dillion Smith’s favorite food.

So it was a no-brainer that he would kick off the weekly menu with hot wings Monday during Sacred Heart Southern Missions’ summer food service program.

“They asked us what we like to eat, and I started telling them, so they let me plan the menu,” he said.

“We have meatball Wednesday, salad Thursday and Friday sandwiches. They always make sure we have plenty of good food to eat.”

The summer food program allows kids to eat a free lunch and a snack five days a week at the Dehon Learning Center in Walls.

The program is run by Sacred Heart, but is funded by the USDA’s Summer Food Service Program.

“A lot of these kids aren’t getting a meal with school out, so this is a place they can come and get a hot meal while their parents are at work during the summer,” said Joyce Moore, who coordinates the summer programs for Sacred Heart. “We buy the food, and prepare it fresh Monday through Friday. The USDA then reimburses us for the food.”

The Food and Nutrition Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, began serving the meals in 1968. In the summer of 2012, more than 2.8 million children participated in the program at nearly 39,000 sites across the country.

In Walls, the program began last month and will run through July 26.

It is open to any child in need of a meal in the Walls area, but at noon each day, 15 to 30 kids, mainly from Dehon Village, a low-income housing development, walk across the street to the learning center for lunch.

On Tuesday, hamburgers were sizzling in a pan and steak fries were baking in the oven when the kids began to slowly trickle in at the learning center that at night offers adult continuing education classes to some of their parents.

The USDA requires that the kids are fed a nutritious meal that contains 2 ounces of meat, an 8-ounce glass of milk, and fruit at each meal. Afternoon snacks are usually graham crackers and another glass of milk.

This is one of two summer food programs that Sacred Heart and the USDA have in the North Mississippi area for children. The program in Holly Springs starts next week.

“I did a similar food program in West Memphis at a housing complex where we fed 130 kids a day,” Moore said. “In Walls, the program is not that large, but there is still a need. This lunch is the only meal a lot of the kids get.”

STAN CARROLL/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL Rose Bourage (left) and Marcella McKay prepare lunch for about 20 children in Walls for the Southern Feeding Program sponsored by Sacred Heart Southern Missions through the USDA. The free lunch is the only meal some children get with school out.

Malachi Jackson, 4, balances his food tray to his table for lunch at Devon Village in Walls. Through a program with the USDA, Sacred Heart Southern Missions provides kids with free lunches and afternoon snacks.