OKC supper program fills the hunger gap
A free mid-afternoon feeding program is making a difference in the lives of Oklahoma City district students who participate in sports and other afterschool activities.
The program is offered at Capitol Hill High School, Centennial MidHigh and Herronville Elementary School.
“I think it’s good because some people might not have food at home or they might be hungry and they can come here after school and eat,” said Asia Hererra, 15, a freshman at Capitol Hill High.
Asia works with a tutor after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her meal of choice is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a banana and milk.
Basketball player Dshanti Fancher and his teammates rolled into the school’s newly renovated cafeteria Thursday afternoon to eat before heading to a tournament in Edmond.
Fancher, 16, a 6-foot-5 junior, can go as long as eight hours between lunch and dinner some days.
“It keeps me going,” he said of the extra meal. “If I’m hungry, I’m not focused on basketball.”
Senior Kevin Quillen also meets with a tutor after school. He prefers a spicy chicken sandwich or Frito chili pie. He said the supper program makes a very big difference.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s still cafeteria food,” he said. But it helps. It wakes you up and energizes you.”
The district, which currently feeds free breakfast and lunch to all students, serves about 300 supper program meals every day, said Kevin Ponce, the district’s director of nutrition services.
Ponce said one in five Oklahoma students don’t get the meals they need on a daily basis.
“This is an effort to combat child hunger and to help students fuel their minds and bodies with an additional well-balanced meal before they head home at the end of the day,” he said.
Ponce said the district plans to expand the supper program to more schools in the future.
The program is available to all children 18 and under, even if they are not enrolled in school, and is funded through the US Department of Agriculture’s Child and Adult Care Food Program.
The after-school meal program at Capitol Hill High School and Oklahoma Centennial MidHigh is available Monday through Friday from 2:30-3:30 p.m. and at Heronville Elementary Monday through Friday from 3:15-3:45 p.m.