COUNTYWIDE : For Students, There Is a Free Lunch

Under the shade of a wooden cabana at El Camino Park in Orange, school nutritionist Judy Ross fed submarine sandwiches, cold juice and milk to children who wandered into the shelter and sat at the metal picnic tables.

The kids who stood in the chow line at the cabana were among thousands of children in Orange and Anaheim who were served a free lunch Monday, when the county’s first federally subsidized summer meals program was launched in two school districts.

“This is a milestone for us in Orange County,” said CleophusDavis, state program manager for food and nutritional services in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “We have been trying for years to spark some interest in having this program in Orange County. The need has been documented. We’re very glad to have sponsors now.”

The federal program provides breakfast and lunch to children in school districts that have applied for the program and where at least 50% of the students can be identified as needy. Orange Unified and Anaheim Union High, the only school districts in the county participating in the program, have designated 10 sites where free meals will be served throughout the summer. Although the two school districts served 1,800 lunches and almost 600 breakfasts Monday, officials, noting the vast number of children in the two cities who don’t get enough to eat every day, described the turnout as light.

“While it’s not as many children as we would like for the first day, we know that the numbers are going to increase when more parents and children hear about the program,” said Barry Sackin, food services manager at Anaheim Union High School District. “We are going to have a viable program started here.”

Officials believe that as many as 5,000 children will be fed daily at the schools by the time the program ends on Aug. 23. According to a recent study by Children Now, a social advocacy group, the number of children living in extreme poverty in Orange County has increased 28% in the last three years.

“People think that Orange County is this very affluent community with very (few) hungry children,” Ross said. “That might have been true several years ago, but it isn’t now. We have children who depend on programs like these so they can have a good meal in the summer.”

By noon Monday, a dozen children had gone to the cabana at El Camino Park to munch on sandwiches. Some children couldn’t believe that they could eat for free.

“Can we go to the park again tomorrow?” one boy asked his mother.

The meals, which are similar to those served during the school year, are made at school district kitchens and then delivered to the distribution sites.

In Anaheim, the meals will be served at Dale and Sycamore junior high schools and Ponderosa and Audre Plaza parks. Orange Unified has six distribution sites--Lampson, Handy, Prospect, Taft and West Orange elementary schools, and El Camino Park. The meals will be served Monday through Friday through the end of the program, except on July 4.

Parent Pam Jones, who helps serves the children at Handy Elementary School, said the program gives families a “helping hand.”

“There are so many families who can’t afford to feed their kids lunch or are working and don’t have the time to make them a sandwich,” Jones said. “This program can work out really well for both parents and kids.”