Meal programs open to all students

The students in Butler County are receiving more opportunities to be fed when families are struggling from COVID-19.

Through programs with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, students with all three districts can receive free breakfast and lunch, while Poplar Bluff R-I and Twin Rivers R-X are expanding to free dinners as well.

Dr. Ben Johnson, R-X superintendent, said the dinner plan will be rolled out before Thanksgiving break.

The original plan was to start at the beginning of November, but they ran into some hiccups with getting everything established.

“We’re getting close,” he said. “We’re excited to get this going for our families.”

Johnson said the dinners will be sent home with students, including those who stay late for after-school programs such as sports.

“Our goal is always (to service) 100% of our students,” he said. “That’s our high ceiling. So, you’re looking at 900 plus students.”

The district will release more information when the program is ready to go.

Through the DHSS programs, these meals will be available for the rest of the school year.

Dixie Harden, Poplar Bluff food services coordinator with Chartwells, said through a waiver due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the district is able to send dinner meals home when previously they had to be provided on campus, which meant they would only be available to students in after-school programs.

“We try to encourage, when they get home, some type of activity,” she said. “Some of them read for 15 minutes. Secondary level they have their Chromebooks and they have assignments and things on that line.”

The district started its dinner program two weeks ago, but changed how it is distributing meals to older students this week.

Originally, at all grade levels, students could pick up a meal while leaving at the end of the school day.

“We changed because there were a couple of issues at that higher grade level,” Harden said. “Students were saying they wanted the meal, but when they got on the bus they weren’t acting appropriately with it; trying to throw things out the window and things on that line. Or just saying they didn’t want them when they told us they did. So, they were leaving them on the bus.”

The younger students still can, but at middle, junior high and high school, parents can pick up dinner meals for their student between 4-5:30 p.m. at the middle school campus.

“We haven’t had a whole lot of kids doing that,” Harden said. “We did the timeframe just in case parents were at work, they don’t get off until 4 or 5 (p.m.), that gave them time to get over here before 5:30 to pick up a meal for those higher grades.”

With this change, Harden continued, the district is giving out about 25-35 dinner meals at the upper grade levels this week compared to 150-200 at third grade and lower.

The program is open to anybody under the age of 18 within the county, Harden said.

This includes the district’s virtual school students. Harden said those families can fill out a form each week on the district’s website, which needs to be turned in by each Tuesday.

When filling out that form, the family can say which of three pick up locations are most convenient for them. Those meals are picked up on Friday for the following week and includes all three meals.

For breakfast and lunch, Harden said, R-I pre-kindergarten through third grade received free meals anyway. However, the waiver due to COVID-19 extended that to all grade levels.

“I think we have more participation (now),” she said.

Harden said she encourages families to take advantage of these meals, especially those struggling from the financial impact of the pandemic.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize there’s still a lot of struggling going on out there for families, and the price of food has gone up,” Harden said. “Some things are not even still on the shelves, or if they are, they’re very little.”