LCPS feeding program switches gears with addition of delivery by school bus

Delivery of free lunch and breakfast to LCPS students by school bus, a feature of the emergency feeding program that brought meals to these children last spring, returns Tuesday when expands its school meal program, a combination of delivery and curbside pickup sites. Submitted photo.

Beginning Tuesday, Lenoir County Public Schools will provide meals to its students and their siblings through a combination of curbside-pickup sites and bus delivery locations throughout the county.

The free hot lunch and next-day breakfast will be provided curbside from 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. at Kinston, South Lenoir and North Lenoir high schools and by 20 school buses making more than 130 stops at set locations each school day.

The schedule of bus stops is online at https://tinyurl.com/yxqbbp8v. The schedule is arranged according to the five schools from which the buses originate. This is only to assist families in identifying the stop most convenient to their location. Students do not have to attend that particular school to receive meals from a bus on that route.

This feeding program is the third iteration of LCPS’s efforts to keep Lenoir County’s youth fed during the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. An emergency feeding program launched when the pandemic closed the state’s public schools in March distributed more than 5,000 a meals a day, and the summer feeding program that began in June has averaged about 4,400 meals a day.

“We look forward to reaching out to our students through meal distribution with the use of yellow school buses and through curbside delivery at our traditional three high schools,” said LCPS Child Nutrition Director Danelle Smith, whose department worked with the district’s Transportation Department to organize the program.

“We are here to serve our students because the last thing they need to worry about is being hungry when they need to focus on school and on doing their very best work,” Smith said.

LCPS has been able to secure an extension of the USDA’s Summer Feeding Program through Dec. 30 that will allow the district to offer meals to all students and their siblings 18 years old and younger. Under the program, parents are allowed to pick up meals for their children.

Meals will be distributed each school day, including days designated as special remote instruction days, while LCPS students are involved in remote learning, according to Smith. Meals will not be distributed on teacher workdays.

Daycares and other facilities attended by LCPS students may be eligible for meals if they do not already receive federal funding. Those facilities, if interested in participating, should contact Smith by email at dmsmith@lenoir.k12.nc.us.