FARMINGTON – The Regional School Unit 9 school nutrition program intends to stop including extra food for the weekend
In a letter addressed to the RSU 9 Community, Superintendent Tina Meserve noted that since March 17, the second day of the schools being closed, the school nutrition program had prepared and packaged close to 15,000 breakfast and lunch meals. Funding is primarily covered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Child Nutrition Program, although food and funding has been donated from other local sources as well.
The meals are distributed at pick-up locations across the district, but are also delivered door-to-door by volunteer drivers for those that can’t make a pick-up location. They’re available for any child ages 0 to 19.
While the district has been including extra deliveries to cover weekends, Meserve said that practice would be coming to an end.
“Due to the extremely high number of meals produced and distributed each day, last Friday’s delivery included the final weekend extra meal delivery we are able to provide,” Meserve wrote.
She also directed people to a list of free local resources, located here.
It would be interesting to know how important the weekend meals are considered to be. Presumably, there was a good reason for them. How confident are officials that referrals to other local sources will suffice to meet the needs of these kids? I mean, if the school district is unable to do anything further, who is taking over to make sure the kids are being fed??
Who is taking over? Why aren’t parents taking over?
Having a jug of milk, a loaf of bread and some peanut butter in the house might be appopriate.
Lots of kids? Make that 3 loaves of bread.
I think this is amazing that they have been able to do it as long as they have. Public schools are not set up to put out this kind of food and have never served weekend meals. Public schools cannot be the only game in town to feed kids (and lets be honest they are not just feeding kids at this point).
…..who is taking over to make sure the kids are being fed?Really!!!Now it’s been a while but when I was a kid that problem was left up to the parents
kids need to eat on the weekends too and food stamps ( if eligible) and food pantries are insufficient feed them!!
please reconsider!!!!
I think the answer is obvious…It is not up to anyone other than the parents to make sure their children are fed on the weekends. I realize food is expensive, but we should not look to the schools to solve that problem. Everyone can use assistance, as we’ve learned in times such as this, but again, it is up to the parents to seek that out. Thank you ALL that are involved in the distribution of these lunches for those in need, we appreciate your efforts.
Maybe the parents?
I’d be willing to bet my paycheck (yes essential worker) that some of these same parents wanting help to feed the kids still have their marlboros and beer, booze. This program is important yes but abuse of said system leads to situations like this as we have seen in many other social services in this day and age (not just corona time). These tough times should wake people up to what priorities we all should have in life. Good food, clean water, and self responsibility no one should ever rely on anyone else unless they are handicapped or elderly. The elderly in this country hate to be dependent because most of them lived through the Great Depression and did it by doing exactly what we should be doing right now. If you have a neighbor that has food and you don’t go help them for the day doing chores and I’m sure they would e willing to share some of their food. Stay safe folks.
I would never deny a child a meal but parents need to be parents and provide for their children. I realize this is a tough time for some but as stated above pb & j and bread aren’t that expensive. Some I said some not all who can afford to buy cigarettes and get tattoos need to rethink their choices that ultimately hurt the children that they and they alone chose to bring into this world. God bless all of the children.
In an area where government is seen as the enemy, it’s hard to understand why folks are so dependent on assistance. Yes, right now it is fully understandable and expected that all of the good people in a society will help those in need…what about before…what about after this pandemic recedes?
Consider for a moment that your vote does count and when you cast it to reduce social programs, you are voting the spoon out of your mouth with the food still on it. No one should judge you and you should vote your conscious and when you “Win”, enjoy it! If the result of your vote means a reduction in the amount of services or assistance you or others receive, remember how that happened. Memory is a wonderful thing if the facts are recalled but often we choose to remember the good stuff and forget/bury the bad and attribute it to others.
During this time of isolation, look inside and reflect on the decisions you have made and will make moving forward. Positive change is up to each individual and should be supported by the government We The People elect to represent us. If you choose not to vote…be silent and accept whatever comes your way.
Of course parents should be feeding their own children. However, other than the obvious issue of kids whose parents are too drugged out to feed them properly, I foresee problems with parents who have transportation problems (maybe even laid off and can’t afford gas for the car), and those whose children are not old enough to be left alone while the parent goes for food, meaning the parent has to bring all the kids into the stores.
I see your point My Take, but how do other people make it work? There are a lot of struggling folks who have never even thought of asking for help. It’s hard for me to always have sympathy when so many of the people I graduated with had babies right off, immediately went on social assistance, and are still dependent 15 years later, only with more mouths.
Unfortunately, I think our community and state provides so many safety nets, many parents don’t take the time to better themselves and change their circumstances. One individual I graduated with who receives benefits just left their long-time job because they finally crossed into a new tax bracket. They left the job in order to still qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit. They gave up the stability of a weekly paycheck for a big government check in January. Now, how the heck will they be able to afford groceries, heating costs, car repairs etc with only one working parent? They know they can and will get help if needed.
Parents need to step up and when we give them something to fall back on, many won’t.
Idk, yes, many people take advantage. The system may very well be flawed. Parents need to step up. I challenge you to look into the eyes of a hungry 5 year old and explain that it’s her parent’s fault she’s hungry. When you’re done lecturing her about how her parents are losers maybe she will have lost her appetite. Problem solved.
Wow…people who have commented on this thread are finally recognizing some of the problems social services deal with and support.
I feel bad for those little kids, but unless I could shake the parents into sensibility, things won’t change.
I went hungry as a child sometimes despite my parent’s best efforts. When we had dinners, we got the leftovers to ensure our bellies were full.
The world has not and will never be perfect. But we’re not making it better by not encouraging adults to be adults. Only hurting babies of the future.
In this day and age there is hardly no such thing as broke, the number of programs available to people is astounding compared to what it once was, there is WIC, TANF, SNAP, disability, early draw social security, rent and utility assistance, there are even programs that will help with the purchase of a car. The programs are great during the “lockdown”, but they are funded and there are 50 states and a total 89,000 elementary schools, if the schools can provide meals on the weekdays, that is a good thing, but some of the responsibility for feeding kids has to fall to the parents as well. Feeding kids is cheap, they have simple nutritional needs. A can of Chef Boyardee ravioli contains 2 servings, that is less than $.50 cents a serving, carrot sticks, a bag of carrots is about a buck, and a glass of milk, $.24 per 8oz, that is around a dollar per meal. If parents can’t trim the fat of their grocery bill and their life to feed their kids on the weekends, it is because they are selfishly lazy. The price of a single pack of smokes will feed a kid for almost 3 days.
So the sins of the fathers must be visited on the children? How revolting!
If I was in the position to explain to a 5 year old what you are asking I wouldn’t use the term loser, I would use the word ” wrong ” instead. It is wrong not to feed your child. That is a parents job, to support and teach their children.
At some point the child does need to learn that it is wrong to not feed, support and raise children. It is wrong to abuse and neglect children. If a child is not taught that then the cycle just continues.
Doesn’t the school budget and USDA help provide for this? Wouldn’t the schools be making these meals anyway if school was in “buildings”? Technically school is still going on, the students just aren’t in the buildings. So when I hear the school system say they’ve handed out 15,000 lunches and breakfast is over the past couple weeks, that seems about the same amount they would have been handing out to free and reduced lunch kids if school was running like normal… Many of the students are in free and reduced lunch anyway, and at the schools only charging 1.75 or so for a meal I can’t imagine that much of a profit maker. I’m just confused on why this is such a burden financially to the school system.
Feed the kids is not about the budget. It’s about how much work load these people are doing. It’s not the same as your kid walking in the cafeteria line each day. Each item must be packed, fruit cups are all made and packed by hand, just think , how did those grapes get inside this container. I’ll tell you how! 2 people stood there pulling the grapes off the stems, washing the grapes them each serving is placed into 4oz cup , then they must have a lid, them stacked to go into a assemble line. Monday morning I saw Andy making pasta salad, starting at 5:30 am. If you could see the production lines it takes to pull this off every day you would be amazed.. They still make food from scratch, which takes time. They have to assemble hundreds of boxes every day to place your kids lunch into. This crew is working hard so the children will be feed. There’s nothing any more heart breaking then to see a kid go hungry. We see it every day. But what happens when our kitchen crew gets sick? Who’s gonna cook then. I for one am so very PROUD of what they do every day. Chef Andy and his crew are my Rock Stars ⭐️
It’s easy to point fingers and tell parents to step it up. It’s also not entirely wrong. The problem is doing this causes kids to suffer and it’s not their fault.
Unfortunately our district is ripe with generational poverty. Remember when they ran Bass shoe and Franklin shoe off and they sent their jobs out of country? What did they replace those thousands of jobs with? Minimum wage retail and fast food?
Many of us are fortunate enough to have good jobs, have families that offer a support system and safety net. We have hope. For those with out any of that they live a life of despair. In those moments they turn to substances etc.We as a community need to demand better.
We need infrastructure (rural broadband) to attract business and provide work from home opportunities. We need to attract industry which pays good wages so folks can be financially secure.
@ Local Mom & All, I make a point not to comment here often but must set a few things straight. Please understand we will continue providing meals to children who need them during the week as they would have normally received them if they were in school. It is the extra meals for the weekend that we can no longer sustain. It is with a heavy heart that I make this decision but I must put food safety and the safety of our people on the front lines first. We prepared, packaged, and distributed 3146 meals last Friday. If we had the capacity we could have done an additional 300-400 meals as many sites/busses ran short and were only able to provide one extra meal for the weekend. The logistics to make this happen are incredible and could not be done without the selfless actions of our staff and volunteers helping to prepare, package and distribute meals. They are all true hero’s.
Under normal circumstances, producing and serving this many meals is easy for us. We prepare food, cook it, hold it hot, and serve it using seven kitchens throughout the district. Packaging meals to travel that are ready to eat or ready to re-heat is a whole different ball game. Normally, we can rely on the fact that what we order from our suppliers is going to arrive. These are not normal circumstances. We are making last minute adjustment to the menu due to ingredients that are shorted on our deliveries. These adjustments sometimes change the packaging needed or staffing required to produce that meal. We will continue this service to our community for as long as we possible can thanks to the incredible dedication and commitment of the amazing team we’ve assembled. If you know a “lunch lady”, please thank them.
And for those out there wondering how this meal service will impact the local school budget the answer is $0.00. The meals are reimbursable through the USDA and costs not covered by that are supplemented by donations and/or grants I’ve applied for. If you’d like to help out, please send a check to MT. Blue Lunch 129 Seamon Rd. Farmington ME 04938 and write “emergency feeding” in the memo line.
And if you are an adult who is taking advantage and getting any of these meals for yourself. SHAME ON YOU.
Local mom,read the first sentence,it pretty much says it all since kids don’t go to school weekends the school is doing just fine with food service
To all of you bashing the parents for not providing food for their children. I just want you to know when I was little the only time I was fed was at school, if I happen to to play with a friend or when we may have had some food for a sandwich a day. My mother couldn’t work because of mental health problem and dad was gone. I remember wishing how it would be to have a real meal in my own home. I remember seeing our mother getting foodstamps . Those are apparently not enough. As a mother of 4 now that has made such a huge impact on me and it’s followed me in a awful way. I have PTSD because of lack of food.
These are our children in our own community you’re all complaining about feedings. I’d feed them all if I could. I wouldn’t want ANY of them to go hungry one day. Who cares why they lack food. They need to be fed!
The article stated this program is funded by the USDA Child Nutrition Program, which is intended for children ages birth to 19. It didn’t say it was a financial burden on the district.
My take is that people have been taking advantage of the program and asking for meals for people who are not eligible. THAT will certainly place a burden on the system AND take meals out of the mouths of children who truly need them.
The school district trusts its community members and parents and does not ask for student names or proof of children’s ages when meals are picked up or delivered to their doors by volunteer drivers.
These meals have to be prepared, packaged, and kept cold the entire time they are being delivered; with the weather warming up, there must be coolers involved-just imagine how that is accomplished. If you look at the district website, there is daily meal pick-up at four schools, four daily bus routes, and what appears to be a small army of volunteer drivers going door to door when folks aren’t able to go to one of the schools or meet one of the buses at the established meal drop locations.
Instead of complaining, I think we should be grateful that RSU 9 has been able to provide breakfast and lunch meals at least five days a week since the beginning of the school closure.
Thank you to Chef Andy, school nutrition staff, bus drivers, volunteer drivers, other district staff, and anyone else I may have forgotten. I, for one, am thankful and commend you all for your hard work, long hours, and commitment to keeping our students fed.
Here’s food for thought….the price of a cellphone, the price of endless tattoos, the price of a pack of cigarettes, sculptured fingernails, hair dye, skin piercings, a bag of weed…goes a long way in the grocery store.
There are plenty of “sins” to go around MARIE E. It seems its part of their constitutional rights to make bad decisions and have children they cant feed then all of a sudden we are the bad guys for not taking care of their problems for them. We as a society are way to easy in allowing this to happen with out more consequences. Dont get me wrong I would not let any child go hungry if I could help it but knocking anyone who talks personal responsibility in taking care of their family is going in the wrong direction.
Marie, So the sins of the fathers must be visited on the children? How revolting! I agree with you, however I believe everyone who posted here feels horrible that children may not be getting the nourishment that they need on a daily basis. That being said parents who don’t ensure that their children are taken care of should be ashamed unfortunately SOME are not and that I believe that the above comments are referring to. Is this the children’s fault absolutely not, no matter the circumstance As for your previous posts I’m guessing you’re on the side of the liberal Democrats which is your choice. What is your stance in regards to abortion? As previously stated God Bless the children that are here and the unborn. We are in the process of making lunches for children at our local town hall and we could use the help, if you want to help reply and I’ll get you my cell # via DB. Thank you
Breaks my heart to know there are families out there that can’t be given a box of food and prepare meals for their own children. That they can’t portion out, take each grape off the cluster and feed their children. I am also very concerned that each hand that touches our foods and products raises the chances of sickness.
This virus is a real wake-up call on many levels. Thank you to all the people going above and beyond.
First off I want to thank Chef Andy and his amazing, compassionate, hard working lunch crew ( my sister is one of them💜)for doing a superb job preparing breakfasts and lunches for the students! Also thank you to the many volunteers and other employees who are volunteering their time to help put meals together and distribute them. I appreciate all of you and many others do too! During a “normal” school year, students are fed breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday. They’re not fed during vacations including summer. They’re not fed on weekends, holidays, snow days or when they are home due to other reasons. These students are going to continue to be fed through this school year on the days they would normally be in school. Parents need to be responsible to provide meals during the other days. There are plenty of programs for assistance if necessary. Please take the time to acknowledge and thank all school lunch employees for their hard work and dedication to your children. They are making their own personal sacrifices with their families to be on the front line. Thank you for all you do and continue to do.
First off, thank you Chef Andy for all you do. I want to let you know that I do really truly appreciate you and all of your hard work. Your team is doing an amazing job. You stated that “the meals are reimbursable through the USDA and costs not covered by that are supplemented by donations and/or grants I’ve applied for.” So why is there a need to stop? That’s why I’m confused. Is it that the USDA doesn’t cover the meals that are for the weekends? I think that that’s what people are confused about. Is it because it’s a financial burden or just because you lack the time and resources to prepare these additional weekend meals. If that’s the case may be other people would be willing to help out.
It is also because they are feeding children 0-18 so there is an entire population of kiddos that would not be feed in a public school as they are not old enough to attend school. That added a lot to the amount of time and resources.
If you want a heartbreak, watch kids waiting for the lunch bus to drop off food. I was (un)fortunate to be in traffic and witness three young boys tear into a cardboard box of food as soon as it was delivered. Pants too short, holey sneakers and t-shirts too small on thin boys with ruffled hair. No adults present. Kids on their own. Donate to food banks if you can. Donate to food services if you can.
I have continued to go to work in Mallett school’s kitchen, since school ended. I will tell you that it has been a long 3 weeks.I am so thankful for my amazing coworkers (Liz, Susie, Blanche and T) and Andy. He worked and is still working hard to provide a safe and happy workplace. We would love to provide more meals, it’s just not possible. It’s not about the budget or money, it’s about our safety and health. There is a lot of love and time put into those boxed meals everyday. We will continue it 5 days a week, just like we did before:) There are other food programs available on weekends, so we are able to recharge and be with our families.