Renecker knows what the bags of cut vegetables, single-serve cereal boxes and heat-and-eat bowls mean to parents picking them up each week. They are a lifeline to families, including her own. The school meal program “helps to stretch our money,” said Renecker, a former nursing assistant raising a 6-year-old and a 13-year-old in Yakima.
“I was a hungry child at one point, and I would hate to see any child go hungry,” she said. “I know they can’t learn when they’re worried about when they’re going to be fed.”
Yakima, an agricultural hub surrounded by orchards amid dry hills, was hit hard by both the pandemic and the attendant economic collapse. Summer brought spikes in infections — at least three of which sent children to the hospital — and unemployment, which nearly doubled in the area.
Many Yakima families qualified for food stamps or other forms of federal assistance before the pandemic hit, and that softened the blow in one specific way: The city’s schools already offered meals to all students for free, year-round. That’s because they participate in several U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, including one allowing school CONTINUE READING: Coronavirus means free school meals across the U.S. What if that stayed?
