If children are hungry during the school year, the board reasoned, they're probably hungry during the summer, too.
The Tate County School Board took action toward filling those empty stomachs at their March board meeting.
Mike Schwartz, who recently took over the district's food service program, told board members that he would like to impliment a summer feeding program at the three newest cafeterias in the county: Independence High School, Coldwater Elementary School, and Strayhorn Elementary School. There would be one feeding site in each area of the county.
Schwartz said that the meals would be provided to children under age 18 at no charge.
Any adults who ate in the cafeteria would be charged the standard rate of $2.75 per meal.
The program would also provide free meals to local churches during their Vacation Bible School programs, as long as those churches had adequate facilities to meet the program's requirements.
Schwartz explained that because 67% of the children in the district qualify for free or reduced lunch, state money was available for the project.
Three workers would be required at each site: a cafeteria manager, a cafeteria worker, and a monitor. They would serve the meals from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. during four weeks in June and three weeks in July.
Schwartz said he planned to use district employees who were already under contract for the work.
He believes that the district will "break even" financially with the program. He added that within the first week, workers should be able to know approximately how many meals would be needed each day, thus cutting down on wasted food.
With a motion by Richard Todd and a second by Ethel Eldridge, the matter passed unanimously.
In related news, Schwartz said that the district would begin serving breakfast at all schools, instead of only Strayhorn, Coldwater Elementary, and East Tate Elementary.
Board members also unanimously approved changing the schedules of cafeteria workers so that all would be on an eight-hour shift, instead of staggared shifts which sometimes led to expensive overtime.
All board members were present for the meeting.
Email News Editor Melissa Turner
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