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Summer can be a time of hunger for some Sonoma County’s children and teenagers.
If schools close in June, thousands of children will lose access to free and discounted lunches. As every summer, the Redwood Empire Food Bank is working to fill that void.
From June 7th to August 6th, the nonprofit is offering free, healthy breakfast and lunch to children aged 18 and under. Meals are served in three dozen locations across the county.
Last year, when COVID-19 was still widespread, the Tafel reduced the number of outlets for the Summer Lunch program to 20. But it still served around 85,000 meals – many thousands more than a normal summer, Allison Goodwin said , the director of programs for the organization.
This increase results from relaxed regulations. Prior to the pandemic, the United States Department of Agriculture required every child receiving a free meal to be present during that 30-minute meal distribution. They had to sit there and eat at the construction site, Goodwin said.
With the outbreak of COVID-19, these restrictions have ceased to exist. The Summer Lunch program has been switched to take-away breakfast and lunch and offers care packages with groceries for the family that can be taken home to prepare and eat. Parents were allowed to pick up meals at drive-through locations. The children no longer had to be present. Now, according to Goodwin, a parent can “leave an older teenager at home while the baby naps, then go and get the meals for the week.”
During the pandemic, the Redwood Empire Food Bank was able to “bundle” meals – breakfast and lunch – for all five days of the week. “So we can feed more people and provide more food” than the previous model, she said.
With these relaxed restrictions, the Tafel was able to distribute 94% more meals to families in need than in previous years. “That is what we advocate.”
The State of California reimburses the Redwood Empire Food Bank for a portion of these free meals prepared by the Santa Rosa City Schools and transported to the locations.
The free meals can only be offered near schools that are classified as low-income by the country’s Ministry of Education. But children are welcome anywhere, regardless of whether they go to school in that district, said Maria Fuentes, director of the “Every Child, Every Day” program on the Tafel.
About a third of the 36 Summer Lunch locations have been “merged,” Goodwin said, in places where the food bank is already distributing food to families in need. This year-round operation is separate from the summer lunch program.
Some people have come to pick up groceries and have found they can get summer lunches too, she said. “So they were pleasantly surprised.”
You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ ausmurph88.
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