Kids have summer meal choices
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Local families have multiple opportunities to provide food for their children free of charge this summer.
Mount Ayr
The most ambitious meals program is run through the Mount Ayr Community Schools, which provides five prepackaged breakfasts and lunches for each child in a household per week.
There are no eligibility requirements other than children must be between ages 1-18. Children are not required to be enrolled in the Mount Ayr schools. Regardless if they live out of the school district, county, or state, all children 1-18 may sign up for the Mount Ayr program.
Even if children are visiting for a short period, families may sign up for meals for individual weeks only.
To sign up for the meals program, families must fill out a Google form available on the Mount Ayr schools website at least a week in advance.
The form asks for an adult contact, the first names of children to be served, the preferred time of meal pick-up, and the weeks the families desire meals.
Meals for an entire week are distributed on each Monday through July 14 at the middle school door (Door 10). Scheduled pick up times are afternoons 12-1 p.m., 1-2 p.m. and 2-4 p.m.
Meals must be picked up by a parent, grandparent, or guardian.
The meal boxes are divided into three separate packages. One contains non-perishable items such as chips and syrup. A second package has fresh fruits and vegetables. A third package contains refrigerated foods like hamburger and chicken strips. Quarts and gallons of milk are also available.
According to MAC food service director JoAnn Pollock, this summer’s meal program has been a tremendous success.
“It started out with, I think we had close to 250 [kids signed up],” she said, “but as of this week, we have 409. We’ll be doing 818 meals for that week.”
It’s estimated 150 families are served by the program.
In order to get all meals packaged and distributed, three employees work on Thursdays and Fridays, and five work on Mondays. Amanda Cannon [district secretary] and Stephanie Newton [district financial officer] also help with handing out the meals, keeping a total of the meals being picked up, and ensuring the correct person is picking them up. Personnel compensation is covered by the school district.
However, the remaining costs for food is reimbursed by the state.
School districts have a choice in meals programs offered by the state.
Last year Mount Ayr used the Seamless Summer Option through which free breakfasts and lunches were required to be served and eaten on site.
“We were lucky to break 100, even counting our summer school students,” said Pollock.
This year MAC is offering the Summer Food Service Program, and, as noted earlier, the response has blossomed.
“It so warmed my heart, seeing all these people signed up,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, but you’ve got kids who might not get those two meals.”
Despite the advantage of serving additional students, Pollock cited one disadvantage.
“One [disadvantage] would be that people that signed up for meals and don’t pick them up,” she said. “When this happens there is a lot of waste due to state regulations of not refreezing the frozen food and some of the fresh produce not lasting until the following week. The program last year was we cooked for a certain number of children 1to18 and hardly had any waste.”
Healthy Kids Iowa
The MATURA Neighborhood Center in Mount Ayr offers food programs for kids and families alike.
The Food Bank of Iowa delivers a variety of food items every other Monday for distribution at the Center, but items in each delivery may vary.
The Healthy Kids Iowa program is open to children ages 4-18 in the months of June, July, and August.
Eligibility for the program is income based and reserved only for kids who live in Ringgold County.
Food items available monthly per child through the Healthy Kids Iowa program include milk, fruit cups, veggie cups, chickpea spread, eggs, ground beef, mac & cheese cups, pasta sauce, avocados, pears, pancake mix, and protein shakes.
In some cases, food not picked up at the Mount Ayr program is donated to the Neighborhood Center for distribution there. This is especially true for milk.
Families may pick and choose which items they wish to take, although quantities are limited per child according to Food Bank guidelines posted at the Center.
Items may be picked up at the Center during regular business hours Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
The Neighborhood Center also offers additional food items beyond the Healthy Kids Iowa list for low income families.
As with the Healthy Kids guidelines, eligible families may pick up food once per month and sign in each month to verify income status.
Diagonal
Diagonal’s summer meals are also furnished by the Food Bank of Iowa, and their program follows the same Healthy Kids Iowa guidelines as MATURA’s meal program.
Income eligible families, any child receiving free or reduced lunches, and/or SNAP benefits may receive one box of food per child per month through the summer.
Recipients must be residents of Ringgold County.
The Diagonal meal program began June 14, but boxes will be available for pick up at the United Church of Diagonal food pantry on July 19 and August 16 from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m.
Boxes can also be delivered to families by contacting Shelly Bentley at 641-202-1790.
