School will be out for summer on May 29, but food service isn’t ending.
Children will be able to eat breakfast and lunch for free this summer at three locations in Brown County.
Beginning June 3, free lunches will be served at Brown County High School and the Brown County YMCA in Nashville and Forest Hills Apartments in Gnaw Bone. Breakfast will be available at the high school and the YMCA only.
Meals are funded by the United States Department of Agriculture and are free to children 18 and younger.
The meal program will run June 3 to 28. Service will resume July 7 and will run through July 26.
The first day of next school year is Aug. 7.
In total, 1,563 free summer breakfasts and 3,269 free summer lunches were served last year.
During the school year, only low-income students can eat school meals for free, but in the summer, all children can, no questions asked.
Adults also can come and eat at the meal sites; they pay $3.55 per meal.
Brown County Schools Food Service Director Jason Kirchhofer said he would love to have a food truck to drive out into the county and serve meals to children who can’t get into Nashville or Gnaw Bone to eat, but the rural nature of Brown County makes that difficult.
“For example, if I went to Van Buren (Township), since Van Buren is so spread out, I’d have to go to Van Buren Elementary School. People will still have to travel to the elementary school,” he said. “In an urban area, the food truck is really successful because it can go to a local park or next to a housing addition or into a housing addition and still feed kids.
“I don’t want to put any kids in danger (having to cross heavily traveled roads). That’s one of the reasons why we haven’t done it. It’s not something we’re totally against,” Kirchhofer said.
Delivering meals directly to children at their homes also has been mentioned, but it’s not guaranteed that a child would be allowed to answer the door to receive it, and the cost to run that service would be high, he said.
Last summer, the largest number of lunches served was at Brown County Intermediate School, which was hosting summer school. That program will not occur this year and that school will not be a host site.
The YMCA will probably see more participation this year than in the past, because not only is day camp happening there most weekdays this summer, but the Head Start preschool program also moved there earlier this year.
The first year meals were served at Forest Hills in Gnaw Bone, the apartment complex location was closed to the public, only open to residents. Now, that is an open meal site.
A child does not have to be a student in Brown County Schools to get a free meal, nor do they even have to live in the county. “There are no requirements besides being under 18,” Kirchhofer said.
Meals are prepared by the Brown County Schools food service department, and all food served follows USDA nutritional guidelines.
On student count day last fall, 1,792 students were counted as attending Brown County Schools, and of those students, 53.2 percent qualify for either free or reduced meals at school.
“These numbers lead me to believe, during the summer vacation, Brown County students are at risk for hunger, and we’re in a position to help,” Kirchhofer said.
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High school: 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. for breakfast; 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. for lunch
YMCA: 9 to 9:15 a.m. for breakfast, 11:30 to 11:45 a.m. for lunch
Forest Hills: 11:55 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. for lunch
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Meals served in June 2018
High school
Breakfast: 620 meals
Lunch: 634
YMCA
(while summer day camp was going on)
Breakfast: 447
Lunch: 589
Forest Hills
Lunch: 214
Meals served in July 2018
High school
Breakfast: 25 meals
Lunch: 62
Intermediate school
(while summer school was going on)
Breakfast: 175
Lunch: 1,211
YMCA
(while summer day camp was going on)
Breakfast: 296
Lunch: 396
Forest Hills
Lunch: 163
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