Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

District joins food group

Fewer students in the Prescott School District will be going hungry when school starts for the 2001-2001 year.

This is because the Prescott School Board, in its regular monthly meeting Tuesday, June 26, entered into an agreement with Jim Lenderman, pastor of the First United Methodist Church, to participate in the Food For Kids program.

The program is an outreach of the Arkansas Rice Depot in Little Rock, Lenderman said, and is specifically geared between the Depot and schools.

Currently, he said, more than 200 schools in the state participate in the program.

What the program does, he said, is provide nutritious, supplemental food for children in need. It's designed to help children feed themselves.

The food given to the students is either canned or dried, but something they can prepare without help. Lenderman said the food provided is all good quality.

The food, he said, doesn't have to be refrigerated, but the school will need a safe place to store it.

The school's responsibility, he continued, includes identifying the children at nutritional risk and making sure they get the food.

To keep from embarrassing the students involved in the program, the food, Lenderman said, will be placed in their backpacks at some point during the day. In the event the student doesn't have a backpack, one will be provided.

Prescott Superintendent Ron Wright said studies show some of the best meals some children get are the breakfasts and lunches served at their schools.

There are people on each campus, Wright said, who can help identify children in need and distribute the food.

"My dream," Lenderman said, "is to speak to Gurdon, Emmet, Nevada, Blevins and Hope. If we can get enough schools involved, we can get a regional drop set up here."

Lenderman said trips will be made in the church van to pick up the food at the Rice Depot in Little Rock on a regular basis. A regional drop in the area, though, would mean the foodstuffs would be brought here, thereby saving trips to Little Rock.

The board had no problem endorsing the Food For Kids program in the district.

No student in the program will be identified at any time, to help prevent any embarrassment.

Additionally, there is no charge to the school to be involved in the program. It's designed to meet the needs of children who are falling through the cracks of social relief programs.

The program is not, though, intended to provide supplemental food for large number of low-income students in the district, but to address the truly undernourished or malnourished.

Along with foodstuffs, some students may be given personal care products, when such items are available.

Any student in the program having trouble in class because of hunger can be sent to the principal's office where they will be given a high energy snack, such as a granola bar or can of fruit cocktail and juice box. They will then return to class.

This program is not intended to compete with traditional food pantries, nor is it to make the child the "breadwinner" of the family.