FREE LUNCHES: Local groups help feed youth all summer long
Dani Messick - The Goshen News
GOSHEN — Cultivate Food Rescue is once again partnering with Goshen Health and Goshen Community Schools to offer a free lunch program series across the city’s parks.
Every week at Shanklin, Pringle and Hay parks, in addition to Goshen Community Schools’ summer lunch program, Goshen Health will offer its Summer Health Lunch Bunch program weekly, and on Fridays, Cultivate will be giving away free weekend frozen meal backpacks.
The Summer Health Lunch Bunch program aims to improve the health of the community by providing interactive health education to students and families at targeted summer feeding sites. More than 9,500 students have participated in the program since it began, a press release from the hospital states.
The Summer Health Lunch Bunch provides a trained educator to manage Goshen Health’s summer health curriculum to students at each location one day per week. At Shanklin Park and Pringle Park, the educator will be on-site on Wednesdays, and at Hay Park an educator will be there on Thursday.
Thanks to an American Rescue Plan (ARPA) grant from the city of Goshen, Goshen Health will fund Cultivate’s backpack program. Every Friday, nearly 200 backpacks will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis among the three lunch sites in Goshen. Backpacks each contain six nutritionally balanced meals to help students meet potential food needs throughout the weekend. The program runs from the week of June 3 to July 19 except the week of July 1.
the Summer Health Lunch Bunch is at 23 free summer lunch sites this summer between Elkhart and Kosciusko counties.
Lainie Holland Adams, Cultivate Food Rescue director of Planning and Programs, explained that backpacks each cost around $1.53 per meal. Despite no costs for the food, fuel prices, packaging costs, and overhead costs mean Cultivate spends around $2,000 per week on meals with Goshen location backpacks alone. Community partners include Center for Healing & Hope, city of Goshen, Elkhart County Health Department, Goshen Farmers Market, Live Well Kosciusko, Minority Health Coalition,
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