Summer programs are feeding more metro Atlanta children than before, but 85 percent of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch during the school year aren’t reached in summer, Georgia Department of Education figures show.
DeKalb County Executive Director of Nutrition Services Joyce Wimberly says, given the state of things in her district where 73 percent of DeKalb County’s 101,000 students receive free or reduced-price lunch, any little bit helps.
“I’ve seen personally that there is a need,” said Wimberly, a 23-year veteran of the district. “We have more parents applying than ever before.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program seeks to ensure children from low-income families have access to nutritious meals during the summer. Officials said the goal nationally is to serve about 200 million meals this summer. The Seamless Summer Option is another federal program DeKalb participates in to ensure low-income students are fed during the summer. The programs are funded through federal, state and local funds.
Wimberly said DeKalb County Schools serve an average of about 9,300 breakfasts and 13,200 lunches daily to students who participate in summer school or attend programs through the county’s parks and recreation department. Others who receive food are walk-ins to any of 137 sites where food is served this summer.
Wimberly recounts stories of parents coming in to apply for free lunch throughout the school year, saying they’ve lost their jobs, homes or both.
“This is filling that need,” she said. “The same students we service through the school year have a need.”
About 311,000 meals were served last summer in DeKalb, Wimberly said.
In Gwinnett County, about 82,000 meals were served to students there, Gwinnett school spokesman Bernard Watkins said.
In Clayton County, where 95 percent of the district’s 53,000 students receive free or reduced-price lunches, about 2,800 breakfasts and lunches are being served daily.
Atlanta Public Schools serves about 3,500 lunches for all its summer program participants. The city of Atlanta separately operates a summer feeding program for children in the Atlanta Parks and Recreation, Centers of Hope and other summer camps.
Angel Love, an eighth-grader at Mary McLeod Bethune Middle School in Decatur, said the meals help her expanding family, which includes her mom and stepdad, younger brother and a new baby brother on the way. She said she’s often seen kids saying they didn’t need the food program who are the first in line come lunchtime.
Another friend whose family went through hard times was reduced to eating dog food.
“When I see him in the lunchroom, he looks happy to get a meal,” the 13-year-old said. “It’s a blessing.”
Tatiana Hardy, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Bethune, said she’s happy for the summer food program, which helps lighten the load for her parents during the summer. The teen said she’s heard too many times how some of her friends have gone without because their parents could not afford or forgot to shop for groceries.
“A lot of the kids don’t tell anybody anything,” she said. “And you know they’re hungry.”
Eighth-grader Fermin Banegas said the meals are convenient because of the time saved not having to prepare lunch at home. He said the meals come in handy to keep his energy up to get through classes, too. Seventh-grade student Patrick Cosby agrees.
“Some of the kids, they don’t cherish that,” he said.
The meals are the standard fare, including granola bars, cereal and fruit for breakfast. For lunch, it ranges from turkey sandwiches to Mexican-themed meals, as well as staples such as pizza and chicken tenders.
But, as it goes, not everyone is pleased all the time.
Eighth-grade student Christian Banegas, Fermin’s cousin, said he got excited for chicken tenders only to find cold chunks of breaded meat on his plate. Fermin said the pizza crust looked like cardboard.
It can sometimes be a bit much, Patrick said.
“Sometimes,” he said, “you just want a grilled cheese.”
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