DISTRICTS PREPARE PLANS TO FEED KIDS DURING SUMMER
As another school year ends, Colorado districts turn buses into mobile cafes and accept donated PB&J to help thousands of students during summer break
Another school year is coming to a close, but the work isn’t. Colorado school districts are converting buses into mobile cafes, partnering with churches and accepting donated PB&J to feed more students during the summer break.
C lasses may be winding down for the summer in Colorado, but work is far from over for the people in charge of school lunches. Denver Public Schools is making preparations to serve breakfast and lunch to kids at 62 sites across the city, said Leonard Apodaca, the district’s area supervisor for food services.
Each year, DPS officials evaluate which neighborhoods have the most need for free meals, and work with the city so they don’t overlap with meal programs at recreation centers, he said.
It’s not unusual to get more than 11,000 kids eating at DPS sites per day in the summer, Apodaca said.
“Every year we tend to do a bit more” meal service, he said.
School districts and other organizations in high-poverty areas can offer free breakfasts and lunches to anyone younger than 18, no questions asked. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reimburses them for the meals, as long as the food meets federal nutrition standards and the organization can show at least half the kids in each site’s vicinity qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Most districts also allow adults to purchase meals, usually for less than $5.
Across Colorado, only about one of every 15 children who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches — those most likely to be at risk of hunger because of their families’ low incomes — gets summer meals, said Taylor Washington, community engagement manager at Hunger Free Colorado.
Families may not know about the meal sites or that their children can get free lunches with no questions asked, or there may not be a site close enough to be practical, she said.
“A barrier that we often see is the transportation piece,” she said.
Some districts are trying to solve that problem by bringing food to the students.
Aurora Public Schools will run a few traditional meal sites this summer, but