SAUGUS — The final bell of the school year rang almost a week ago and volunteers still fear some children will go without enough food over summer break.
The Healthy Students, Healthy Saugus program was launched over the 2018-2019 school year to supply meals to children in food-insecure households on the weekends. Every Friday afternoon during the school year, students who needed help were sent home with enough food for two meals and two snacks per day.
“The vision of our program has always been to feed the kids on the weekends,” said volunteer Dennis Gould. “They usually get two meals a day at school. We don’t have a clear vision for how we take care of them in the summer.”
School principals initially identified a total of 40 families they believed would need assistance in fall 2018. These families were the first to benefit from the program during a trial period. By the end of the school year, the number grew to 60 and included half-a-dozen high school students, said Gould.
This year, about 47 percent of Saugus elementary school students were considered economically disadvantaged and between 1,200 and 1,300 children qualified for free or reduced price lunches.
Superintendent David DeRuosi said he has been tracking a gradual 5 to 6 percent increase in the number of economically disadvantaged families in the public school system each year.
According to a report by Feeding America, a hunger relief nonprofit, 12.9 million children lived in food-insecure households in 2016 and 13.3 million, or about 18 percent of children in the United States, lived in poverty. Food insecurity was defined as not having consistent access to an adequate amount of food.
During the 2015 federal fiscal year, 22 million low-income children received daily free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program. Meanwhile, fewer than 4 million children participated daily in the Summer Food Service Program and Seamless Summer Option.
During the summer months, Gould is hoping families will sign up with the Saugus United Parish Food Pantry, which operates out of the Cliftondale Congregational Church on Friday mornings.
“The food pantry gives out a lot of food and I’m hoping that the 60 students that we serviced this year — I’m hoping their families will sign up,” said Gould.
But the pantry has not yet seen a recent increase in the numbers of families seeking pantry services, said Director Wendy Reed. About 10 families signed up for services when the Healthy Students, Healthy Saugus program began in the fall, she said.
“If they come, we have plenty of resources for them,” said Reed, who added that families can designate someone else to pick up groceries for them if they fill out an authorization form.
Gould also hopes to collaborate with local farmers markets that are interested in donating vegetables and other items that don’t sell at the end of the day. The food would go directly to the families eligible for assistance through the Healthy Students, Healthy Saugus program.
Food donations can be made to the Saugus United Parish Food Pantry and financial donations to the program, he said.
