Packing Paper Bags

The sun has barely risen but the Community Kitchen of Monroe County is already bustling with activity.

Heather James and four volunteers are packing paper bags for the kitchen's summer breakfast program. By 9:00, two vans will leave the kitchen to deliver these meals to kids in low-income neighborhoods around the area. James and her crew are right on schedule.

For lunch today, it's 80 bags with bologna sandwiches, milk, juice and an orange. "Yesterday, they actually had peanut butter white chocolate scones, yeah which were amazing," says Vicki Pierce, executive director of the Community Kitchen. Those scones were made in-house and they do that a couple times a week as a special treat for the kids.

Pierce says they looked at the numbers of kids receiving free-or-reduced lunches during the school year to determine which neighborhoods to put on their summer delivery route. In total, nine neighborhoods in both Bloomington and Ellettsville.

The Ice Cream Truck

Ben Myers is driving the van they call the Ice Cream Truck. He parks it in a central location, like a playground, and kids can just run up to the van, grab some food and go. First up, it's the Crestmont Boys and Girls Club.

"It's challenging to express what it's like for a lot of these kids, to go out firsthand and experience it, it is eye-opening," says Tim Clougher, Assistant Director of the kitchen. He's the one who makes connections with the mobile home directors and apartment managers to get permission to do the deliveries. He also worked with schools to get flyers into kids' hands before the school year ended. They serve anyone under 18, but the majority of the kids who take advantage of the free food are under 12.

About 37-percent of students in Monroe County received free-or-reduced lunches this past school year, according to the Indiana Youth Institute. That translates to about 5,200 kids. Pierce says some of these kids are eating breakfast and lunch at school, which means that during the summertime, two things are happening:

"They are potentially at a nutritional disadvantage because they're not getting those two meals a day at school that are well-balanced and meeting their needs. In addition their families' food budgets are going to be stretched so much more tightly than they are during the school year."

From Trailer Park To Playground

We're now at Lindsey Hayes Trailer Court in Ellettsville, Indiana. Three kids are waiting for the van to pull over. Myers gets out a wicker picnic blanket and sets it down on a patch of overgrown grass and gravel. Some kids take their breakfast and go. Three kids stick around with their raisin bran, apple juice and milk.

"This is the best turn-out I've been here for," says Myers. "We have five kids today, so far." We stay at each site for 15 minutes, then it's onto the next.

If you think about three kids, five breakfasts a week. That adds up to a lot of money really fast.

The kitchen paid for this program out of its own budget for years. They now receive funding from the summer food service program of the Indiana Department of Education. With that funding comes some hoops to jump through.

"We'll need to keep track of how many kids eat here with us as well as how many kids we hand a meal to and just take them home," says Myers. He's making tally marks on a clipboard indicating how many kids pick up food.

The funding is intended to support congregate meals -- where everyone comes to one location and workers make sure the kids are the ones eating the food. At this stop, Highland Park Elementary, everyone needs to sit on the blanket and eat the food while we're here. It's a state requirement.

All Are Welcome

"Kids, why do we come to the breakfast truck?" asks Chanel Earl.

"To have breakfast," responds her 4-year-old.

Earl has been bringing her three kids to this delivery spot for four summers. Two of her kids eat meals provided by their schools, so the summer months are tough on her budget.

"If you think about three kids, five breakfasts a week. That adds up to a lot of money really fast," she says. "And we can handle it. We would feed our kids if this wasn't here. They wouldn't go hungry."

At first, she thought her family didn't qualified for this program because, as she put it, they aren't starving. But Pierce says no one has to prove their need to be welcomed into the Community Kitchen.

"Because the reality is, they need to eat. And that's our philosophy across all our programs, even in our dining room for our evening meal. If you need to the food, we're not going to question why you need the food."

What's most important is removing barriers.