Almost lunchtime: Fourth site added for school feeding program

St. Mary Parish public schools added a fourth site Thursday to the list of locations where parish children can receive free meals beginning Monday
Meals will now be distributed at Raintree Elementary in Baldwin as well as at the junior high schools in Morgan City, Patterson and Franklin as the system tries to provide nutrition for children during the suspension of classes because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Any St. Mary young person 18 and under is eligible to receive a free Grab ‘N’ Go breakfast and lunch, packaged together, at the curb at the four distribution sites.
The meals will be distributed 10:30 a.m.-noon each weekday beginning Monday and through April 9. Under current state restrictions, the last date schools will be closed is April 10, but that’s Good Friday, when school would have been out of session before the new rules went into effect.
Children do not have to be eligible for free or reduced-price lunches to receive meals. Children receiving meals have to be present at the distribution site.
The meals are being distributed to be eaten off the site, and, in order to comply with rules limiting public gatherings, no one will be allowed to stay at the sites after receiving meals.
The distribution at each site will be limited by the number of meals available.
The district is prepared to distribute 2,400 meals — 1,200 lunches and 1,200 breakfasts — each day, said Claire Guarisco, the St. Mary public schools food service director.
“We’re going to have meals available at every site,” Guarisco said. “I don’t know how many people will show up. We’re concerned about it.”
On Thursday, Guarisco, Mark Johnson and Eric Logerman pulled up to Patterson Junior High with a truckload of supplies to be used for preparing the meals.
The addition of Raintree to the feeding sites came after School Board members said at a Tuesday special meeting that they were concerned that meals would be distributed at only one site in the parish’s west end, making it hard for children whose families lack transportation.
Meals will be prepared at Franklin Junior High and taken to Raintree for distribution, Guarisco said.
Guarisco said the availability of food service workers limits the number of meals that can be offered and the number of distribution sites.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Guarisco said some of her cafeteria workers are older people or those with diabetes or other health conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID-19. Older people and those with chronic health conditions have been urged to avoid the risk of transmission.
Other workers have children of their own who are at home because schools are closed, she said.
Guarisco has been trying to order from a company that offers prepackaged breakfasts and lunches. But there’s a two-week waiting list.
“That doesn’t mean we’re going to get them in two weeks,” Guarisco said.
St. Martin Parish’s feeding program for students began distributing Grab ‘N’ Go meals Wednesday at Stephensville Elementary School. Meals are distributed there 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. weekdays. Meals are available at other sites in the upper parish.
Assumption Parish administrators say they’re working on a feeding program.
“We will keep the public informed of all developments in this area,” according to the school website. “We want to provide food for students and are working to make it happen.”
Nationally, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced this week that the USDA had entered a collaboration with the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, McLane Global, PepsiCo and others to deliver nearly 1 million meals a week to students in a limited number of rural schools closed due to COVID-19.
The anti-hunger organization Feeding America found in 2017 that nearly 24% of St. Mary children live in homes experiencing food insecurity. The USDA defines food insecurity as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life.”