Lunch Bunch: Agriculture Secretary Serves Meals to Play S.A.F.E. Kids

The state of New Jersey wants to make sure that lunchtime in New Brunswick is healthy, affordable and consistent for all of the city's school-age kids. 

Douglas H. Fisher, Secretary of Agriculture for New Jersey, visited McKinley School on Wednesday to serve bagged lunches, provided by the Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program, to about 125 kids in the city's summer Play S.A.F.E. program.   

Fisher's visit was intended to draw attention to the Summer Food Service Program, which provides free daily lunches to children in economically disadvantaged areas where at least 50 percent of school-age children qualify for free and reduced price lunch. 

The program is meant to ensure that children who qualify for free and reduced price lunches during the school year do not go hungry during the summer months, according to a press release from the state Office of Agriculture. 

It is offered at 1,001 sites throughout the state, according to a press release from the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.

A daily free lunch is included for all kids in the Play S.A.F.E. program, which runs from July through August 9, and is open to all of New Brunswick's children between the ages of 6-12. 

Dave Blevins, Youth Services Systems Director for the city, said the number of daily lunches served fluctuates, but for the last few days, about 1,700 lunches have been doled out at 10 sites around the city.

Fisher, Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Middlesex), and James Harmon of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Mid-Atlantic Regional Office donned gloves and handed out turkey and cheese sandwiches, applesauce, cantaloupe and chocolate milk in the cafeteria of the Van Dyke Avenue elementary school. 

Harmon said that despite the summer program's availability, a lot of families throughout the U.S. aren't taking advantage of it. 

Nationwide, about 22 million children receive free and reduced lunches during the school year, but over the summer months, only about 2.5 million receive meals, he said.

New Jersey has done a decent job in getting those summer meals to children, however, ranking 10th among the 50 states in terms of number of children reached by the summer lunch program, Harmon said. 

"We know it's a program that can still grow, and we certainly encourage all the efforts being done by the state of New Jersey, as well as (efforts around the country)," he said.