“School’s out for summer!” Those rocking ’70s lyrics sound the defiant anthem of freedom for many school children come June each year, but what about the children for whom school provides not just learning, but daily sustenance?
A West Texas county, through a partnership participating churches, businesses, community services and the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, devised a successful program to ensure as many hungry kids as possible get to eat, even when school doors are closed.
Mary Herbert serves as West Texas regional director for the BCHP. Fifteen years ago, she and her friends at Southland Baptist Church in San Angelo saw a need and began a program they called “Kids Eat Free.”
“Fifteen years ago, in 2009, our church was doing a visioning process … because we wanted to get more involved in the community,” Herbert said.
Bridging the gap
In this process, they discovered there was a gap in services because schools were offering meals in June during summer school, but nothing was available to kids in need the rest of the summer until school started back again in the fall, she continued.
In their school district, San Angelo Independent School District, about 60% of kids qualified for free or reduced lunch.
“We thought, ‘Well, what’s going to happen with those kids in the summer after summer school stops?’… So, we decided to implement this summer meal program,” she said.
Herbert explained they began to contact every place they could think who served food to share their vision of creating meal sites for kids for the remainder of the summer.
Another organization called House of Faith already had established an initiative they called Community Connect, where they’d paired churches with schools across the community to “adopt” them.
Herbert and her friends couldn’t think of a better resource to connect with to get started on their plan to feed San Angelo’s children.
House of Faith caught the vision and eagerly joined the cause. Without exception, their church/school pairing partners signed on to help with summer meal sites.
“It was very ecumenical,” Herbert said.
“We had people at First Baptist Church cooking and serving food at the Catholic Church on the east side. And the Episcopal church was helping the Methodist for another site. It was really rewarding to see how everybody pulls together when there’s a need,” she said.
Also in 2009, the BCHP — then known as the Texas Hunger Initiative — began working toward its dream of ridding Texas of hunger and was seeking communities to pilot food planning associations, which are now called “hunger-free community coalitions,” Herbert explained.
While Southland Baptist and Tom Green County weren’t initially selected for the program, the church members were determined this project was the best way to get their vision up and running.
Take it in small chunks
“When you’re starting into something like that, it can be overwhelming” Herbert said. “Ridding Texas of hunger seems really overwhelming to think about, “but if you can take it in small chunks, then it’s a lot easier to deal with.”
It took a little convincing, but eventually they were chosen as a pilot community. And the Tom Green County Hunger Coalition continues to make a difference in San Angelo and surrounding areas as a result.
Herbert said any church interested in starting a program like this would need to approach it the same way — in small chunks.
Southland Baptist runs its program from around July 4 every year until school starts back in August — about six weeks. This length meets the need in a manageable timeframe.
Herbert encourages a congregation who wants to begin a meal site ministry to divide up responsibilities. At Southland, each Sunday School class has a day they’re responsible for. On their day, class members shop for all the food and cook and serve it too.
Herbert explained different churches have chosen to approach the time spent on site in different ways, but most include something fun to do while the kids are there. Before COVID-19, an activity was a stated expectation of participation in the program.
But the pandemic led to some changes.
Collaborations
Since the pandemic, some sites have continued with a grab-and-go setup, but most have preferred to return to and maintain the congregate setting approach to meal service.
The Kids Eat Free organization sets up visits from area services or organizations. For instance, the police department has brought a patrol car for children to see. Representatives from a state park brought a steer form to teach roping. Some churches have a water day or use Vacation Bible School materials.
“We’re not limited by that because we’re private. All of ours is privately funded,” Herbert said. They receive no funding from the Texas Department of Agriculture, and participating churches see it as a ministry.
Calvary Baptist Church has a volunteer who loves themes, so their meal site “goes all out” and has a different theme each week. Sometimes that includes a craft or project to be completed in stages to keep families coming back each day, ensuring they’ll return for something nutritious to eat.
Herbert said Kids Eat Free has served 287,941 meals since they started.
“All of the people who come are very appreciative,” Herbert said, and she believes some families have become members of area churches because of the ministry. It’s called Kids Eat Free, but their parents eat free, too.
Abilene also has adopted the Kids Eat Free program to help meet the hunger needs of Taylor County. And they are very willing to provide support to others who’d like help implementing their program, Herbert said.
Multiple initiatives continue to help combat hunger in Texas through the BCHP and its partnerships.
This summer, the collaborative has partnered with the Texas Department of Agriculture to increase participation at TDA meal sites.
Betty Teston, who works with Herbert at the West Texas Collaborative office as a program coordinator, said the rural areas where she does outreach present special challenges to meeting the nutritional needs of kids through the summer.
She works closely with government programs to help families access the food and resources available to them. Often there is little to no food assistance offered through the summer in rural areas, Teston explained.
The organization has tried to address the issue of having no staff to run rural meal sites by offering a new option to drive through and pick up boxes of food, but it’s not taking off as they’d hoped, yet.
They always are looking for effective strategies to meet the nutritional needs of children, Teston said. And she said the future of summer meals may be in finding ways to get the food to the children rather than relying on kids and families to come to the food.
But, there certainly are opportunities for churches to be involved in solving hunger in Texas, Herbert and Teston said.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Calli Keener and originally published by Baptist Standard.
