Free lunches for hungry kids
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, July 27, 2006
MONROE – Rows of toddlers sit munching peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sliced apples with cinnamon, chips and carrots.
The day care group goes on all sorts of field trips around the area, but Frank Wagner Elementary School is their favorite.
“They like the playground,” teacher Lisette Whalen said.
“And the food!” pipes in Olivia Noble, 5.
Frank Wagner is only in its second year of giving away free lunches for children, thanks to the federal Summer Food Services Program. But its popularity is quickly growing.
“It’s probably tripled,” food services director Russ Knott said of the number of young heads filing by to get meals Thursday.
Frank Wagner is one of 24 sites across Snohomish County hosting the federal lunch program this summer.
Edmonds, Everett, Marysville and Mukilteo school districts also offer lunches at schools, as well as Boys &Girls Clubs, apartment complexes and other locations.
Meals are required to meet nutrition guidelines.
Any kid can come and eat. A group of 11 Japanese foreign exchange students experienced an American school lunch at Frank Wagner this week.
But the lunches are primarily aimed at low-income children who receive similar free or reduced-price lunches during the school year.
“Kids are hungry. For some of them, this is the only (nutritional) meal they’re getting,” Knott said.
Snohomish County sites last year served more than 17,000 free lunches over the summer.
The program requires sites to be in high-poverty school attendance areas where at least half of children receive free or reduced-price school lunches.
It’s a high threshold for many school districts.
Other areas with less poverty can still run a program and get partial reimbursement. But costs often far outweigh those reimbursements – and what’s in budgets.
Schools in Darrington and Index meet the 50 percent mark but, like many other small and rural school districts, don’t offer the summer lunch program.
In all, there are 8,000 children in Snohomish County who get subsidized meals during the school year but live in districts without the summer lunches.
That’s not the only troubling figure for advocacy groups, however.
Since 2001, average daily attendance nationwide in the summer lunch program has fallen more than 6 percent, according to figures kept by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In Washington, the picture is worse. Average daily attendance during the 2005 summer program was down nearly 26 percent from 2001.
Meanwhile, the number of children receiving free or reduced price lunches during the school year is only increasing – up 11,700 in the same time frame, according to numbers kept by the state superintendent’s office.
“Washington has done fairly well expanding the program over the last couple years, but we still have a long way to go,” said Shelley Curtis, nutrition outreach manager for the Seattle-based Children’s Alliance. “There’s still a lot of unmet need.”
There are a number of barriers.
Besides the costs for lower-poverty districts, there also is typically a lot of paperwork involved, despite several efforts over the years to reduce that pile.
The lunches aren’t limited to schools.
In Everett, the summer meals are a community effort, with churches, apartments and kids’ clubs helping out, said Debbie Webber, food services director.
“The outcome is worth the headache,” she said. “We’ve got hungry kids out there.”
Along with day-care and summer school groups, the lunches also draw mothers and baby sitters looking for some social time for their kids – and a bit of stress relief.
“It’s nice because they can play at the park, eat lunch, then go home and take a nap,” said Stephanie Comer, who came to Frank Wagner with her two young children and two of their friends. “It makes for a nice afternoon without the chaos in your house.”
Gail Wyndham said the free meals are a boost for her large family.
She heard about the lunches after each of her three children who attend Frank Wagner in Monroe brought home a flyer.
Nearly every day now she takes them, their older sister and a neighborhood boy she baby-sits.
“It totally cuts down on your food budget,” Wyndham said.
The Wyndham kids say that so far, Jell-O and ham have been winners, with pizza and carrots falling lower on the “yummy” list.
In all, it takes 71/2 hours to prepare each round of 250 meals, said Claudia Reyes, the popular food service worker who has prepared and distributed meals this month at Frank Wagner.
Oneyda Chavez, 15, comes mostly because Reyes is her mom. What else would she eat?
“A lot of teenagers are lazy – well, I am.”
Friends Nick Raistrick, 13, and Jennifer Rodriguez, 12, come for similar reasons.
“I just come here to eat,” said Nick, who otherwise would likely be eating a sodium-packed bowl of ramen noodle soup “because that’s the only thing I know how to make.”
“It’s just a good place to hang out and talk,” Jennifer added.
Free lunch sites
Edmonds School District
Cedar Valley Community School, 19200 56th Ave. W., Lynnwood
College Place Middle School, 7501 208th St. SW, Lynnwood
Everett School District
Delta Baptist Church, 2901 16th St.
North Everett Boys &Girls Club, 2316 12th St.
Family Tree Apartments, 10110 19th Ave. SE
Garfield Elementary School, 2215 Pine St.
Grandview Center, 718 Linden St.
Hawthorne Elementary School, 1110 Poplar St.
Jackson Elementary School, 3700 Federal Ave.
Lincoln Way Apartments, 2721 Lincoln Way, Lynnwood
Madison Elementary School, 616 Pecks Drive
North Middle School, 2514 Rainier Ave.
Pineview Center, 220 98th Place SE
Trailside Apartments, 1300 100th Place SE
Marysville School District
Cascade Elementary School, 5200 100th St. NE
Liberty Elementary School, 1919 10th St.
Tulalip Elementary School, 7730 36th Ave. NW
Westwood Crossing Apartments, 1350 Cedar Ave.
Monroe School District
Frank Wagner Elementary School, 115 Dickinson Road
Mukilteo School District
Challenger Elementary School, 9600 Holly Drive, Everett
Horizon Elementary School, 222 W. Casino Road, Everett
Mariner High School, 200 120th St. SW, Everett
Odyssey Elementary School, 13025 17th Ave. W., Everett
Voyager Middle School, 11711 Fourth Ave. W., Everett
