Brown County Schools continues to provide breakfasts and lunches each day for children during the COVID-19 pandemic, and will continue doing so until June 30.

Seven days worth of meals have been distributed at each elementary school and Brown County High School on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Homebound deliveries and meal distribution at Forest Hills Apartments have been Mondays and Wednesdays with those routes beginning at 11 a.m.

With the official start of summer kicking off on May 11, the school district will now offer free breakfasts and lunches through its summer food service program. Instead of three days, meals will be available Mondays and Wednesdays with half of the week’s worth of meals being distributed on Monday and the other half on Wednesday.

Meal distribution sites at schools will now be open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The bus will show up at Forest Hills Apartments around 11 a.m. and it usually stays until about 11:45 a.m., Superintendent Laura Hammack said in her Facebook Live chat May 4.

Homebound meals will also be delivered on Mondays and Wednesdays.

This summer, Sprunica and Helmsburg elementary schools will undergo an HVAC project, which will not allow them to use the kitchens there to prepare meals. For those schools, meals will be made at Brown County Junior High School, then taken to the two schools where families can pick them up from the bus.

Meals will continue to delivered to the homes of families who cannot go out.

The school district received $106,817 in reimbursement from the United States Department of Agriculture for meals served in March.

By the time of the April 16 Brown County Schools Board of Trustees meeting, more than 18,000 meals had been served in April.

“It’s extraordinary, the way in which families are coming and accessing meals. The fact we can then give Saturday and Sunday worth of meals is amazing,” Hammack said.

“We’re able to give meals to anyone 18 years of age or younger. Even some kiddos that might not be in school or school age, we’re able to give the family meals as well, and we get to count those, which is amazing.”

At the April 16 board meeting, members unanimously approved a renewal of the food service management contract for the 2020-2021 school year with Compass Group USA Inc., by and through its Chartwells Division. That company was given the contract last summer.

“We are seeing increased revenue, we are seeing more student interest in eating at school, and the food is just frankly just great,” she said.

For the past few years, Brown County Schools’ food service department’s budget had been running $150,000 to $200,000 in the negative. Chartwells pledged to close the budget gap and have money in the reserve fund within the first year.

The board will be required to renew the contract annually until the fifth year with Chartwells, when the district will be required to bid the contract again.

“That’s to make sure we’re getting a great product and a great contract,” Hammack said.

Because the district had been struggling with the food service fund, Hammack said the reimbursement for the free meals from the federal government at a reasonable rate is a “wonderful gift.”

“It’s a gift to families. They don’t have to worry about getting out and they have food,” Hammack said.

Hammack said the meal distribution has been successful thanks to staff in food service, custodial, transportation and technology departments, along with administrators and bus assistants who help to load meals being delivered into school buses. The bus assistants are teachers, paraprofessionals and other staff who volunteered to help.

“It’s such a team effort. It’s logistically amazing that every day it happens,” Hammack said.

“Life is moving on. It’s certainly awkward, weird and strange. There’s certainly nothing I would rather do than welcome these sweet babies back to school tomorrow, but we’re doing the best that we can. There’s been these small moments of just miracles. It’s just been a gift that folks are really pulling in with this thing and make the best out of a really challenging situation.”

The waiver the district received from the federal government to do the free meal program expires on June 30, which is why the food program is not being offered in July.