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Thousands of children in Vermont rely on public K-12 schools for regular access to food. And in his directive last week ordering districts to close down, Gov. Phil Scott tasked education officials with making sure children kept getting fed, even as schools shut their doors.
With just days to plan, districts have sprung into action, retooling their food service programs to deliver hundreds of meals a day using school buses or take-out options. Every school district in Vermont is providing meals to students “in some form or fashion,” said Anore Horton, the executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, which is tracking each district’s remote meal plan in a publicly accessible spreadsheet.
“Our hats go off to all of the amazing folks out there who are making that happen,” she said.
Most districts are either providing bagged breakfasts and lunches at grab-and-go sites, dropping food off along regular routes using school buses, or both. A handful are also doing home delivery.
In Burlington, home to the state’s largest school district, superintendent Yaw Obeng said in a livestreamed press conference Monday that staff had served more than 3,000 meals in the first week of remote service. Meals can be picked up at any one of 11 sites across the city, no questions asked, for anyone 18 and under. Parents can pick up meals without their children present.
The rollout hasn’t been without hiccups. In a live-chat accompanying Obeng’s press conference, one mother complained that the meal site she visited that morning hadn’t had enough food when she had come by.
Russell Elek, a spokesperson for the Burlington schools, said Monday that two sites had run out of food so far. The district is standing up a system to make sure meal sites that are running low can call food services for additional meals.
“We’re trying to put systems in place to ensure that doesn’t happen,” he said.
In St. Johnsbury, Superintendent Brian Ricca said the district had distributed about 700 meals in the first three days of service. The district’s buses and school vans are doing daily runs to drop off food along two routes.
But Ricca also stressed that the school district had already adjusted its delivery plans several times in response to feedback, and would be happy to do so again.
“The message we really want our community to take away from this is: We will do almost anything we can to make sure that we are putting food in your hands,” he said. “So please reach out to us if our route isn’t working and we’re going to adjust.”
In the Harwood Unified School District, staff are preparing food in the Harwood high school cafeteria and shipping off bagged breakfasts and lunches to pick-up sites outside each of the district’s seven schools, three times a week. The meals are available to anyone under 18. In the first three days of service, the district served well over 1,700 meals, according to superintendent Brigid Nease.
In the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union, superintendent Jeanné Collins said more than 1,000 meals are being delivered daily using buses. Each bag contains a breakfast and lunch, and Friday deliveries will include multiple meals intended to cover the weekend. The service is available to any families with children 18 and under upon request. The buses are also delivering learning packets and Chromebooks.
“In two weeks, if still distance learning, we will take weekly assignments and pick up homework,” she said.
A majority of schools will use the federal government’s summer meals program to access reimbursements for their new food service plans. But the program won’t reimburse schools for all meals delivered unless the district has a certain number of children enrolled in its free-and-reduced lunch program.
Hunger Free Vermont is advocating with Vermont’s congressional delegation that the federal stimulus package being debated in Washington requires the USDA to waive such requirements.
In the meantime, families that have recently lost income are urged to apply to participate in their school’s free-and-reduced lunch program, Horton said. That could help schools hit the eligibility threshold needed to access universal reimbursements, and avoid a financial fallout when the pandemic ends.
The advocacy group has also compiled a resource guide to help families who need benefits access them.
