According to information from the Georgia Department of Education, 30,292 out of 107,000 students in Cobb County’s schools were eligible for the free lunch program in 2006, before the recession. This year, that number had expanded to 40,148 students eligible during no growth in student population.
The school lunch program is funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is designed to prevent hunger, malnutrition and the negative effects these can have on educational development.
However, children who are on the free lunch program do not receive them during breaks in the school year, such as next week when Cobb is on spring break.
Stacey Moore, spokeswoman for Bright from the Start, a program in the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, tells me the greater need to service kids who require free meals during breaks is in the summer. To accomplish this, Bright from the Start has begun its annual drive to gain sponsors who will run feeding sites for disadvantaged youth 18 years of age and under.
Last year, Moore said, a number of sites in Cobb County were operated by a variety of sponsors. As it does during the school term, USDA also funds the Summer Food Service Program, which Bright from the Start implements statewide. Sponsors must meet USDA requirements for nutrition and other eligibility standards.
Regina Gray, who chairs Mana from Heaven, a nonprofit based in Austell, says the need to feed children during the summer months continues to be critical. Gray said she ran about 11 feeding sites last summer funded through USDA and Bright from the Start.
“You actually want to do all that you can, and that’s hard sometimes,” Gray said. One of the difficulties is advertising the availability of the free lunches, she said. Another is convincing those in the disadvantaged community that they can eat in a safe environment.
Interestingly, two of the largest providers of nutritious summer meals in the county are the city of Marietta and MUST Ministries, a nonprofit charity based in Cobb. While Marietta’s effort is also run through Bright from the Start, MUST Ministries’ meals are the result of donations and not affiliated with any government program.
Marietta’s summer feeding effort is overseen by Mitch Bland, manager for the city’s community development office. Last year, Bland and his team of volunteers ran 28 sites throughout Cobb, feeding an average of 1,500 kids per day “unitized meals” under contract with G.A. Foods based in St. Petersburg, Fla.
MUST Ministries was able to provide about 1,100 locally prepared meals per day in Cobb and another 1,000 in Cherokee last year. The advantage MUST has is that it can go into apartment complexes where the USDA tends to put restrictions on “commercial” sponsors.
MUST is looking to expand this summer into Gwinnett, north Fulton, Paulding and Douglas counties.
“We’re going to start out nice and slow,” said Paula Rigsby of MUST, who runs the summer lunch program for that organization.
While these two programs — the USDA-sponsored program and MUST Ministries — have not fed all of Cobb’s eligible children at their summer sites, the effort is at least being made. There’s a lot to be said for that.
Craig Allen lives in Marietta. Reach him at alle3257@bellsouth.net
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