VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) Many schools in the valley are wrapping up their final days of class this week. Unfortunately for some kid’s summer leads to food insecurities. That’s why Vigo County School’s will be hosting a summer meals program.
School is out for the summer in Vigo County. Many celebrate freedom from the classroom but for some student’s summer is spent looking for their next meal.
“It tends to be that if you are food insecure that it gets a lot harder during the summer time because doing the school year we have those kids, and they get a nice healthy meal for breakfast and lunch on a regular basis,” Vigo County School’s Food Coordinator Tom Lentes said.
The summer food program is a federally funded program that allows Vigo County School Corporation to feed every student 18 years old and younger in the county for free.
The grant allows them to open schools that have more than 50 percent of the school population on free and reduce lunches.
By the end of the summer 12 different schools around the county will be serving breakfast and lunch Monday thru Thursday.”
“Our whole county we run about the 55 percent range but if you look inside Terre Haute, the schools that are inside Terre Haute it’s much higher,” Lentes said. “At Franklin Elementary we had 90 percent of our kids were free and reduce lunches. At Deming we were in the high 80s.”
In his 9 years as the school food coordinator Tom Lentes as seen the number of participants in the program grow.
According to a recent study currently one in 4 Vigo County children live in poverty, the fourth-highest rate in the state.
Out of 92 counties in Indiana Vigo County also ranks 17th for students receiving free or reduced lunch, 6th for food insecurity, and 26th for students experiencing homelessness.
The hope for the program is that no child is left hungry.
“It’s really important for kids to have the opportunity to get something to eat with food insecurity and sometimes the schools feel like a really good location and a lot of times it is,” Lentes said. “I am really hoping we get a lot of folks to come out to Woodrow.”
Woodrow Wilson Middle School will serve breakfast and lunch starting June 3rd through June 27th. Breakfast is served 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Lunch is served 11:30 p.m. to 12 p.m.
The Terre Haute Boys and Girls Club, Catholic Charities, Chances and Services for Youth and more Wabash Valley Organizations have summer food programs.
To learn more about Indiana Youth Institute study click
here.
To find more meal programs in the Wabash Valley click
here
.
