El Dorado School District offers free summer meals

The El Dorado School District started offering free breakfast and lunch Monday for anybody under the age of 18.

Grace George, child nutrition director for the district, said 493 meals were served Monday between breakfast and lunch at the four schools operating the program.

The meals are available on weekdays at Hugh Goodwin Elementary School, Washington Middle School, Barton Junior High School and El Dorado High School. Breakfast is from 8-9 a.m. with lunch from noon to 1 p.m. George said students can go to any of those schools during the time period; it doesn’t matter if the student goes to that school or attends classes within the district.

“They don’t give us their name,” she said. “We just mark them off, they come through and we serve them.”

Adults can also get the meals with breakfast costing $2.20 and lunch for $3.60.

George said the meals are the same as those served during the school year, meeting the same nutritional standards.

“Same product, same things, same quality,” she said.

While they served nearly 500 meals yesterday, George said summer school programs start later this week, with a program at Barton starting today and another starting Wednesday. These programs are expected to cause an increase in the number of meals being served.

“That’s a very good number, especially for our first day,” she said.

Superintendent Jim Tucker said the school district offered the program last year and, based on serving over 21,000 meals last summer, saw that there was a need in the community for it.

“We know there’s students across the state that when school is out they have a hard time getting a decent meal,” Tucker said. “We figured if it was happening across the state and across the country, I’m sure we would have students like that in El Dorado. We decided to do it again this year and hopefully every year after that, just giving students an option and an opportunity to have a good healthy meal that’s convenient. They don’t have to worry about paying for it or cooking, they just come, sit down and eat, and go on about their day and enjoy their summer.”

The meals are paid for through a federal program that school districts can apply for and get reimbursed for the cost. They are offered on weekdays through July 26, except for July 4-5 due to the holiday.

“We’re just real excited and glad we have an opportunity to feed kids and serve a need in the community,” George said. “We hope that anybody in the community who needs something or wants something will holler at us and ask questions.”

All meals served with juice, 1% milk or fat-free chocolate milk

June 4

Breakfast: Breakfast bowl, orange wedges

Lunch: Spaghetti/meat sauce, roll, green beans, diced pears

June 5

Breakfast: Donut, peaches

Lunch: Cheeseburger, French fries, sliced tomatoes, watermelon

June 6

Breakfast: Pancake & sausage, mixed fruit

Lunch: BBQ drumstick, roll, mac’n’cheese, homemade pickles, corn, peaches

June 7

Breakfast: Yogurt, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, banana

Lunch: Ham & cheese sandwich, Cheez-It, lettuce, carrot sticks, apple

Weekly menus for this program will be published in the Sunday Living section of the El Dorado News-Times for the remainder of the program.

Michael Shine may be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook @MichaelAZShine for updates on Union County school news.

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