'Set to serve': SPS summer meal program offers free healthy meals

May 12—Summer in Stillwater Meal Service begins May 30 — and Stillwater Public Schools is prepared.

The federally funded program offers free nutritious meals during the summer for children up to 18 years of age in low-income areas.

Persons over 18 who have a mental or physical disability determined by a state or local education agency and who have participated during the school year in an established program for the physically and mentally disabled can also receive the free meals.

Meals will be served until July 21. There is no food service between July 22 and Aug. 9, but regular meal plan operations will resume August 10.

The summer meal service is available to all children, School Nutrition Services Director Krista Neal said.

"They do not have to be low income, and that's kind of the big misconception," Neal said. "Families tend to think, 'Oh, I don't want to take the meal from another child.' But we get reimbursed from the federal government no matter how many we serve, so nobody's taking a meal from somebody else. If you want a meal, come get a meal."

Another good thing about the program is that children don't have to attend school in the district or even live in Stillwater to participate.

"I grew up here on the weekends in the summer with my grandparents," Neal said. "So my grandparents could have brought me."

Breakfasts will be served 7:30 a.m. — 8 a.m. on Monday — Friday at Skyline Elementary.

Hot lunches will be served 11:30 a.m. — noon on Monday — Friday at Skyline Elementary, and sack lunches will be available at Whispering Hills Apartments and Southern Woods Splash Pad on Tuesdays — Thursdays.

In addition, SPS will serve Grab and Go Meals at Berry Park on Tuesday, Teal Ridge on Wednesday and Our Daily Bread on Thursday.

Five breakfasts and five lunches per child can be picked up and children are not required to eat the meals on site. The child does not have to be present for the meal pickup, but SPS will need the child's name.

Neal said the Grab and Go option is similar to how the meals were offered during COVID-19.

The meals will be fully cooked, but will need to be heated up at home and will be available as long as supplies last.

"I don't want anybody to feel like, 'Oh, I went to get a meal but they ran out,'" Neal said. "It's hard to plan when we don't know how many kids are going to be there ... if we run out, we'll make more."

Neal said school meals do not coincide with immigration status.

"Some families feel like they don't want to participate in school meals because they are worried it's going to affect any kind of immigration issues and it does not," Neal said. "School meals don't count."

The United States Department of Agriculture funds the Summer Food Service Program and reimburses program operators who offer free healthy meals and snacks to children and teens in low-income areas.

"The more kids who eat, the more we get to bring federal money back into Oklahoma and Stillwater," Neal said. "If we don't use it in Stillwater, it's going to go somewhere else."

She likes the program because it gives students and their families something to do in the summer.

"It gives some structure to a day," Neal said. "A lot of times during the summer, there's no schedule, but this gives you something to do during the day and to get out and see (others)."

For more information about the meal program and to view a schedule, visit stillwaterschools.com.